It comes weeks after the company paused operations in an attempt to shore up its finances.
In a US regulatory filing, Virgin Orbit said it made the decision to reduce expenses in order to reduce costs because of the company's inability to secure meaningful funding. Sir Richard's investment firm Virgin Investments has injected $10.9 million 8.8 million into Virgin Orbit to fund severance and other costs related to the workforce reduction. It comes amid media reports that the company's boss has told staff the firm will suspend its activities until further notice.
After a meeting with employees, the Virgin Orbit chief executive Dan Hart said that they had no choice but to implement immediate, dramatic and extremely painful changes.
The mission was billed as a milestone for the UK's space exploration. It was hoped that it would be a major step forward in fulfilling an ambition to make the country a global player - from manufacturing satellites to building rockets and creating new spaceports.