{"id":22700,"date":"2018-11-21T19:22:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T19:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22700"},"modified":"2018-11-21T19:22:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T19:22:23","slug":"boeing-747-completes-first-ever-rocket-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22700","title":{"rendered":"Boeing 747 completes first ever rocket flight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(CNN) \u2014 <\/cite>British billionaire Richard Branson’s galactic aspirations have taken a step forward after his rocket launch company successfully completed a test flight of a Boeing 747 designed to launch satellites into orbit. <\/span><\/p>\n

Virgin Orbit’s plane, Cosmic Girl, took to the Californian skies for an 80 minutes on November 18 with a 70-foot-long rocket, called Launcher One, strapped under its wing, the company wrote in a statement<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n

It’s a milestone for the company that plans to provide an affordable launch service for small satellites by using rockets launched in mid-air from commercial aircraft.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It marks the first time a 747 has carried a rocket, let alone a space rocket,” Branson wrote in a blog post,<\/a> adding that the test flight was “a big step forward for the company as we look forward to reaching orbit in early 2019.” <\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Space tourism<\/h3>\n

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\"Virgin<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The rocket is known as Launcher One.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Virgin Orbit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Virgin Orbit plans to conduct several more flights, which will conclude with a drop test “during which a rocket will be released from Cosmic Girl — without igniting — generating critical data about Cosmic Girl’s and the rocket’s performance as it freefalls through the atmosphere,” the company wrote in a statement. <\/span><\/p>\n

The small satellite launch market is a growing one<\/a>. As satellite technologies become cheaper and private companies on Earth have found new, interesting uses for them, many are looking for cheap ways to get their devices into orbit. <\/span><\/div>\n

Virgin Orbit is among several other commercial space startups, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX, looking to help meet this new demand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some are hoping to carry tourists beyond our atmosphere, with Branson among those striving to make it commercially viable via his Virgin Galactic company. <\/span><\/p>\n

Founded in 2004, Virgin Galactic company completed a rocket-powered test flight at 2.47 times the speed of sound in July.<\/span><\/p>\n

Branson has been making claims of imminent launch dates since 2013, but setbacks including a fatal accident in 2014 have stretched the time line. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(CNN) \u2014 British billionaire Richard Branson’s galactic aspirations have taken a step forward after his rocket launch company successfully completed a test flight of a Boeing 747 designed to launch satellites into orbit. Virgin Orbit’s plane, Cosmic Girl, took to the Californian skies for an 80 minutes on November 18 with a 70-foot-long rocket, called…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}