Virgin Galactic has opened a new facility in California, US, to manage design and manufacturing activities of its small satellite launch vehicle, LauncherOne.
The 150,000ft² facility, which is located at Long Beach Airport, will allow the company to easily transport rockets and its customers satellites using WhiteKnightTwo.
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LauncherOne orbital launch vehicle is designed to carry satellites that weigh 500lbs or less.
The two-stage vehicle can be launched using the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, which allows customers to select the launch location while eliminating launch ranges, Virgin Galactic said.
Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said: "The technical progress our team has made designing and testing LauncherOne has enabled a move into a dedicated facility to produce the rocket at quantity.
"With New Mexico’s magnificent Spaceport America for our commercial spaceflight operations, our Mojave facilities for WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo production, and now our new facility in Long Beach for LauncherOne, we are building capability to serve our expanding customer community."
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By GlobalDataA number of small satellite manufacturers and operators are said to have selected LauncherOne for their satellite programmes.
OneWeb project recently chose LauncherOne to support its efforts to deliver broadband services to remote parts of the world, which are not served by terrestrial networks.
The latest news comes after Virgin Galactic dropped Scaled Composites from testing its new SpaceShipTwo (SS2) rocket.
