By 
January 8th, 2023
Image credit: Virgin Orbit
Start Me Up is the first launch of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket from the United Kingdom – the firm’s first mission outside the United States – departing Spaceport Cornwall at Cornwall Airport Newquay.
The mission will be livestreamed on Virgin Orbit’s YouTube channel on Monday, January 9th
The Start Me Up launch window officially opens Monday, Jan. 9 at 2:16pm PT/22:16 UTC.
Virgin Orbit is backed by entrepreneur Richard Branson. The aircraft, Cosmic Girl, carries LauncherOne skyward under the plane’s left wing – and then released. This will be the first ever orbital launch from the UK, and the fifth operational mission for Virgin Orbit, and the sixth overall flight of LauncherOne.
Image credit: Virgin Orbit
Manifestly yours
The Start Me Up manifest includes:
IOD-3 AMBER – Developed by Satellite Applications Catapult (“SA Catapult”) and Horizon Technologies and built by AAC Clyde Space, all based in the U.K. IOD-3 Amber is expected to be the first of more than 20 Amber satellites to provide space-based Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) data to users.
Prometheus-2 – Two cubesats owned by the U.K. Ministry of Defense’s (MOD) Defense Science & Technology Laboratory Dstl. These satellites, co-funded with Airbus Defence and Space who are designing them jointly with In-Space Missions, will support MOD science and technology (S&T) activities both in orbit and on the ground through the development of ground systems focused at Dstl’s site near Portsmouth.
CIRCE (Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction CubeSat Experiment) – CIRCE is part of a joint mission between the U.K.’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL).
Image credit: Virgin Orbit
DOVER – Developed by RHEA Group in the UK, it is the company’s first satellite in its 30-year history. The satellite is being co-funded through the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Navigation Program (NAVISP) and built by Open Cosmos of the United Kingdom. DOVER is a SmallSat that was created as a pathfinder for resilient global navigation satellite systems.
ForgeStar-0 – Developed by Space Forge of Wales, the satellite is a fully returnable and reusable platform to enable in-space manufacturing. This launch will be the first for the company’s ForgeStar platform and will test future returns from space technology.
AMAN – Oman’s first orbital mission, it is a single earth observation satellite meant to demonstrate the future feasibility of a larger constellation and was developed after a memorandum of understanding among the Sultanate of Oman, Polish Small Satellite manufacturer and operator SatRev, Poland-originated AI data analytics specialists TUATARA, and Omani-based merging technology innovator ETCO. The agreement includes additional planned small satellites, including this, the first in Oman’s history.
STORK-6 – Stork-6 is the next installment of Polish Small Satellite manufacturer and operator SatRev’s STORK constellation. Virgin Orbit previously launched two spacecraft in this constellation on a previous launch and looks forward to continuing to launch SatRev’s STORK spacecraft in the future.
Image courtesy: Virgin Orbit
According to Virgin Orbit, “Start Me Up” is so named as a newspace nod to the Rolling Stones, the iconic British rock and roll band. Their hit song debuted on the 1981 album Tattoo You and was later released on the Forty Licks compilation by Virgin Records in 2002.
Flight details
For more details on this flight, go to:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lEUcwgIKUHeorVZuADvtrBr2szAqWxDF/view
An overview video is available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_NV_cgDiFE
For live coverage of launch, go to:
Posted in Space News
