Virgin Orbit wants to gain a larger market share given successful missions

Virgin Orbit has recently made headlines by launching a rocket from an unusual vehicle, a Boeing 747, to be exact. It’s one of the first launches since the company made their mark on the stock market. Some say that this kind of technology means that the company can now compete for a larger market share within a heavily overcrowded industry. Let’s find out more.

Virgin Orbit Are Competitors

While a lot of companies have been successful at launching satellites, dozens, or even many hundreds! Virgin Orbit has not been able to do this and are pulling out all the stops to make this a reality. In fact, this already overcrowded market features a number of start-ups that have focused on launches of small vehicles. The trend of small vehicles taking up small payloads is very convenient and offers a customisable way of getting satellites into orbit. Virgin Orbit wants to increase its market share of the small payload industry.

Unique launching technique

The launch method used by Virgin Orbit is certainly unusual. Rockets were launched from a modified aeroplane and ignited mid-air. According to the company, this could be a unique selling point and a way to take more of the market share for it. In this day and age, the vast majority of rockets are launched from dedicated launch pads, and this can only be done at a handful of places around the globe. Given that many new Virgin Orbit rockets won’t be launched from pads, the company could easily carry out many missions using runways that are already built all over the world. Virgin Orbit hopes to create many partnerships between airports for future launches.