Virgin Orbit trims losses, eyes two final launches for the year

Virgin Orbit is burning less money, although it won't be launching quite as many rockets as originally hoped. Losses for the company's second quarter of 2022 were $33.3m, down from $44.6m for the same period last year, but revenues stood at zero, down from $1.7m for the second quarter of 2021. The company was quick to point …

[elsergiovolador]

Purpose

What is the purpose of Virgin Orbit? The rich people playground?

It seems like they are spaffing money and emissions left and right while we "enjoy" cost of living crisis.

What benefit that company brings to average person struggling to get by?

[steelpillow]

Re: Purpose

"Of what use is a newborn baby?" -- [some old fart]

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Purpose

[some old rich fart] would certainly pay for a transfusion of baby's blood. Some do it regularly as they believe it will prolong their miserable life.

[just another employee]

Re: Purpose

Name one.

[adam 40]

Re: Purpose

Vladimir Putin.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Purpose

The super rich are injecting blood from teenagers to gain ‘immortality’

It's not too far fetched to suggest that if rich believe the teenage blood is great, then obviously baby's blood is the top stuff no? They have means to do that and won't be advertising it for obvious reasons.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Purpose

Oh look: rehashing the ol' blood libel myth for the modern era?

Red pilled much?

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Purpose

Peter Thiel.

[Roj Blake]

Re: Purpose

Virgin Orbit is not to be confused with Virgin Galactic.

The former will launch satellites into orbit, the latter will launch rich people on sub-orbital flights.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Purpose

Last time I read Virgin Orbit was building ventilators?

Branson Shifts $1.1 Billion Galactic Holding Between Tax Havens - at the end of article.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was another scheme to fleece the tax payer and sending anything to orbit was just a window dressing.

That being said, why don't they set up a business in the UK like normal people do and pay taxes like normal people do?

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Why

Why they do not set up in the UK: The three biggest launch customers in the world are Starlink, the US Military and NASA. Starlink requires a lower cost/ton to orbit than VO can achieve and the next two will only launch with a US provider. Small launch has a massive problem with too many providers chasing too few launches. Throwing away the two biggest opportunities would guarantee VO a place among the long list of failed small launch companies.

Why they do not pay taxes: Because they are making a loss and they are not completely stupid.

It is almost as if VO is not the same company as VG or VA.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Why

You don't have to be US company to have customers in the US. That's ridiculous.

They are making loss to avoid paying Corporation Tax or is it a genuine loss and not creative accounting?

Are they paying licence fees to use Virgin name (one of the oldest tax avoidance schemes)?

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Why

The US government is relentlessly protective of the launch market. You do have to be a US company to get launch contracts from the US government. Setting up and operating a launch company is really expensive. VO have done astoundingly well to keep their project cost down to $700M. Their launch price is $12M. They have launched five times in the five years since being founded. Their gross income does not cover half the cost of a second hand 747.

[nautica]

Re: Purpose

"Virgin Orbit is not to be confused with Virgin Galactic..."

"Meta" is not to be confused with "Facebook";

"Alphabet" is not to be confused with "Google"...

And 'doublespeak' is virulently rampant nowadays---in the private, commercial, and political sectors. Most particularly in the political arena.

Seriously consider reading this book.

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: Purpose

Read 1984 years ago. Meta/Facebook and Alphabet/Google are very different issues from VO and VG. Meta and Alphabet are attempts to hide relationships where as Virgin is a very successful scheme to imply a much stronger relationship than now actually exists. When VO puts something in orbit clueless idiots buy VG because they think it is the same thing and Beardy takes the opportunity to cash out a bit more of the valueless VG.

My personal bet is that after VG has crashed and burned Beardy will do something similar with VO and Vox Space: one will hold the assets and the other will hold the liabilities. Achievements by one will be used to dump shares in the other at a high price.

[Martin-73]

Re: Purpose

They'd be able to save money by not bothering with oxygen or shielding for the rich idiots

[MyffyW]

Re: Purpose

Knowledge is Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Purpose

might launch, not will launch.

The only thing we can be sure about these Beardie ego-trips is they'll generate a lot of bullshit and press releases for the gullible. I've lost count of the number of times that egomaniac has said Vermin Galactic will start operations "towards the end of next year". Calling sub-orbital flights "galactic" is also stretching the truth - by a good few light years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Purpose

Depends what satellites are being thrown up. There are lots of things in orbital space that we use that save money compared to alternatives.

Stereoscopic imaging of infrastructure is useful for condition monitoring in lieu of ground based foot patrols.. It is competitive on all-up cost with the alternatives like helicopter or fixed wing patrols, and often has much higher frequency, meaning more chance of spotting risks in timely manner. There are compelling police applications too e.g. image comparisons when searching an area for disrupted ground (perhaps to find where someone has been buried... Grim, but is a real application in live use).

Infra-red detailed ground observations cameras aren't quite there yet with resolution to throw up to orbit but the tech is coming. Next couple of years are mooted. Because Physics, that capability won't be flying on virgin Orbit. (IR cameras with high resolutions will be big machines).

On a single point basis satellite services are dumb, but where more than one buyer uses such a system it's not hard to find value in them. Communications capability is self explanatory.

The major problem for Virgin Orbit is that as their payload is limited, like the Pegasus launcher before it, it's commercial value is quite tricky to place. "low" cost but not capable enough either for where the real commercial applications are.

[R Soul]

Re: Purpose

For some of your use cases I expect using drones equipped with suitable sensors would be a whole lot cheaper and simpler than using satellites.

However the cops will love to use satellites to catch petty criminals because chasing them with helicopters isn't sexy enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Purpose

We’ve looked at drones extensively. They have uses, but the manpower requirement to operate per drone and spot-check-only when you’re specifically flying mean they aren’t all that as good as made out to be on cost when dealing with trying to cover tens of thousands of square kilometres.

With space imaging, especially from a constellation; you can get updates at a minimum of 90 minutes; if not much quicker than that. Provided your analysis of the imagery is up to snuff that is.