Virgin Orbit Fails To Secure Funding, Will Cease Operations (cnbc.com) 28
Virgin Orbit is ceasing operations "for the foreseeable future" after failing to secure a funding lifeline, CEO Dan Hart told employees during an all-hands meeting Thursday afternoon. The company will lay off nearly all of its workforce. CNBC reports: "Unfortunately, we've not been able to secure the funding to provide a clear path for this company," Hart said, according to audio of the 5 p.m. ET meeting obtained by CNBC. "We have no choice but to implement immediate, dramatic and extremely painful changes," Hart said, audibly choking up on the call. He added this would be "probably the hardest all-hands that we've ever done in my life."
The company will eliminate all but 100 positions, amounting to about 90% of the workforce, Hart said, noting the layoffs will affect every team and department. In a securities filing, the company said the layoffs constituted 675 positions, or approximately 85%. "This company, this team -- all of you -- mean a hell of a lot to me. And I have not, and will not, stop supporting you, whether you're here on the journey or if you're elsewhere," Hart said. Virgin Orbit will "provide a severance package for every departing" employee, Hart said, with a cash payment, extension of benefits, and support in finding a new position -- with a "direct pipeline" set up with sister company Virgin Galactic for hiring.
The company will eliminate all but 100 positions, amounting to about 90% of the workforce, Hart said, noting the layoffs will affect every team and department. In a securities filing, the company said the layoffs constituted 675 positions, or approximately 85%. "This company, this team -- all of you -- mean a hell of a lot to me. And I have not, and will not, stop supporting you, whether you're here on the journey or if you're elsewhere," Hart said. Virgin Orbit will "provide a severance package for every departing" employee, Hart said, with a cash payment, extension of benefits, and support in finding a new position -- with a "direct pipeline" set up with sister company Virgin Galactic for hiring.
Re:Sucks, but you could kind of see this coming (Score:5, Informative)
Virgin Orbit is a different company. It was spun off from Virgin Galactic (sounding rockets for rich tourists),
Re:Sucks, but you could kind of see this coming (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a shame, not just because competition is good, but because Virgin Orbit's system is much more affordable for launching small payloads into unusual orbits.
If you want to launch a small satellite then SpaceX is only any good if you can hitch a ride on someone else's bigger payload, which limits your choice of orbits and launch schedules.
I wonder what this will mean for the rest of the small satellite launch industry. There are a few Japanese companies working in this area too. Low cost, low mass to orbit.
Re:Sucks, but you could kind of see this coming (Score:5, Informative)
Virgin Orbit's system is much more affordable for launching small payloads into unusual orbits.
And yet it's the same thing as Pegasus, which has been around for decades, and only occasionally used to launch anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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And yet it's the same thing as Pegasus, which has been around for decades, and only occasionally used to launch anything.
Yep. Like Blue Origin it is an attempt to recreate legacy technology, using legacy technical and managerial approaches, and expecting a better result.
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Thanks for the correction, honestly did not know that was different. Guess I wasn't paying enough attention to what Virgin was doing.
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Keeping with the theme of you not having a clue what you're talking about you aren't even talking about the right company. Try again, and do a cursory Google before posting next time.
Better headline... (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you, I'll be here all night.
Capability lost (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Capability lost (Score:4, Informative)
that no-one else offers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, it's an amazing new invention. So spectacular.
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*offers*
Present tense.
Yes, you are really amazingly good at this.
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Present tense.
It's still around. Present tense. It's just not really needed, which makes pursuing this old, existing thing kind of dumb.
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Erm, you do realise they had launched succesfully before, and you are not just shooting your mouth off about stuff you can't even be bothered to Google ?
Are you?
We need a technological breakthrough (Score:2)
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Energy Density,Weight to deliver it, and have materials that can direct and control it, and for humans it needs not to kill us.
The only technology that is practical in theory, would be a Space Tether, however we will still need improvements in material science, to be able to mass produce material that could handle such a massive product. Also these will need to built in South America and Africa which may be a bit troublesome as those countries are not rich enough to really handle such a project, and many m
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As I note in a post above, highly reusable launchers are a technology that is developing right now, and is in successful commercial use today even without the "highly" part, that show the notion that "only space tethers can give us affordable space travel" is wrong. The cost of space launches is not the cost of the fuel but the cost of hardware that is thrown away after one, or several (now) uses. The current reuse record is eleven, and there is no technical reason why it cannot one day be in the hundreds.
T
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Space tethers are interesting, if we can build them.
But I think we should not build any, even if we are capable of building them - at least till we have reasonable peace on our planet.
All it needs is a sufficiently motivated nutjob to bring half, if not the whole world to ruin, if the tether breaks.
And you don't even need nukes to do that.
Smuggle an explosive up, make it go boom, and watch the rest of the tether drop and wrap itself around the planet. Maybe it may not be too bad if we can build a naked teth
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It is odd in the age of SpaceX, whose entire business proposition and proven success, is based on making space travel cheaper by using reusable rockets, to see people believing that using chemical fuel is the major cost driver in space launches.
The fuel cost of putting a kilogram of payload into orbit is about the same as the fuel cost of air freighting it from the U.S. to India using the most fuel-efficient airliner on the market. Air travel to India is not a prohibitively expensive activity and a great de
I feel bad for those laid off (Score:2)
But seriously, what were they thinking? I mean other than a British company with a direct path to low orbit, what else was there in it?