Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit Space rocket company will close after 6 years

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Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit Space rocket company will close after 6 years

We have a problem, Branson said. Virgin Orbit, owned by Richard Branson, will be shut down after just six years of operations. Virgin Orbit, which is owned by Virgin, announced in a statement that it would shut down its operations following the liquidation of most of its assets. The buyers include Stratolaunch and Rocket Lab USA.

Virgin Orbit plans to sell its modified Boeing 747, known as Cosmic Girl, to Stratolaunch for a net worth of $17 million. Despite the hope for higher bids, no better offers were offered. Rocket Lab USA has also agreed to purchase Virgin Orbit's main rocket manufacturing facility in California for $16.1 million, Seattle Times reported.

Virgin Orbit filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday after failing to secure a funding lifeline in April. Low on cash in mid-March, the space company announced that it was laying off approximately 85% of its workforce following the January incident, which left the space company scrambling for new funding and forced it to discontinue operations.

In April, Texas-based venture capital investor Matthew Brown failed to obtain funding from Texas-based venture capital investor Matthew Brown, via a private shares placement, to prepare for its next mission a week before the bankruptcy announcement. In January, Virgin Orbit rocket LauncherOne was hit with an anomaly that prevented it to launch nine small satellites into lower Earth orbit.

Although he said he had taken great efforts to address our financial position and secure additional financing, he said, we ultimately must do what is best for the business.

We believe that the cutting-edge launch technology that this team has created will have wide appeal to buyers as we continue in the process to sell the Company. We believe that the Chapter 11 process represents the best path forward to identify and finalize an efficient and value-maximizing sale, he said.

Richard Branson, a billionaire, founded Virgin Orbit in 2017 as a subsidiary of Virgin Group, a British multinational conglomerate. Virgin Orbit's vision was to provide affordable and flexible launch services for tiny satellites, using a unique air-launch system that enables rockets to be launched mid-flight from a modified Boeing 747 aircraft named Cosmic Girl Virgin Orbit in July 2019 through a special purpose acquisition company SPAC deal. Social Capital Hedosophia, a venture capitalist, was created by venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya and was created to acquire a tech firm and take it public.

Virgin Orbit has encountered financial difficulties and has struggled to obtain additional funds. The company's market value has decreased significantly, as mentioned in the previous question.

Its worth noting that the SPAC deal that took Virgin Orbit public is different from the SPAC deal that Richard Branson's other space company, Virgin Galactic, used to go public in 2019. Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit focus on space tourism, while Virgin Orbit focuses on satellite launches.