Virgin Galactic Announces New Satellite Launch Vehicle 102
An anonymous reader writes "Virgin Galactic has announced a new craft called LauncherOne, which it will use to put satellites into orbit. 'It appears to leverage some of the hardware already developed for SpaceShipTwo, Virgin's suborbital tourist vehicle. Like SpaceShipTwo, the new rocket rides up underneath Virgin's big carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, to about 50,000 feet. After release, the rocket drops for approximately four seconds before the first stage ignites. After the first stage burns out, a second stage takes the satellite to orbit.' Launching from a moving airplane eliminates many cost and scheduling concerns inherent to ground-based launches, and it's much easier to reach a broad range of trajectories for putting objects into orbit. According to the press release, LauncherOne will get objects up to 225kg into orbit for less than $10 million."
Re:And that's why (Score:1, Funny)
Really? I bought a Pluto. You might call me a hipster, but the UI is better.
Worth every penny! (Score:5, Funny)
That's just enough to orbit my mother in law.
Re:Worth every penny! (Score:5, Funny)
"LauncherOne will get objects up to 225kg into orbit for less than $10 million."
That's just enough to orbit my mother in law.
I presume you mean to send your mother in law into orbit, and not to send a 225kg object looping around her.