CosmicGirl is a 747.
It used to be owned by Virgin Atlantic.
Virgin Orbit bought the airplane.
They stripped out and made it very light.
So it's a very different airplane than it ever used to be.
It's modified to carry a rocket.
It does what's called air launch. So
rocket on the airplane launched from the air.
So we will at Spaceport Cornwall will taxi onto the runway.
Get airborne like a normal airplane, but will climb really aggressively.
Just trying to get to height as quick as we can where it's nice and cold,
roughly about 30,000 feet.
And we enter what we call a race track.
The race track is an area where we're trying to combine
everything to happen at once.
So we have a terminal count, which is where the rocket is now.
Chilling, pressurizing.
Getting the engine ready.
It's a 15 minute process.
At the end of that 15 minute process, it's ready and it needs to go.
It doesn't want to wait 4 minutes.
It's ready and it has to go now.
And at that point, we want the airplane inclined
and an aggressive nose up attitude pointing to space, ready to go.
We're looking for exact speed to get rid of the rocket, your hand’s on the button
and you hit that parameter.
You press the button.
At the moment, you press that button, everything stops.
You have that is it done a work?
Is it going to come off?
Have we done it right? Have we done our checklist right?
And it's about a half second delay.
And then you hear this huge clunk as these massive hooks
hold in the 70,000lb rocket to the airplane collapse.
In about 5 seconds, you hear the engine start and it's
just this deep, deep roar and that's where as we we're in this right
hand bank, look out the left window and I can picture my last launch.
And you've got the window frame. It was like a picture.
This rocket just sat next to you fully lit up.
Just going for it, you know?
And it is accelerating one hell of a rate.
The rocket falls away.
We hear nothing at this point. But you feel the airplane straightaway.
We've just lost 70,000lb from one of our wings and were slow
the airplane straight away. It's banking over and we're letting it do it.
We know that the airplane gets some speed and do what it wants.
It's doing that.
The challenge is that gives you I can never fly on autopilot.
The auto throttle is don't work manually fly everything.
I can be very careful when a roll in and out turns gently
and when I'm doing the launch release maneuver, we're losing speed quickly.
You know, the the you're doing a lot
as a pilot to keep the airplane where it where it should be.
And then lastly, if we if we come back with the rocket, for whatever reason,
is the additional challenge of landing with a rocket under the wing
that's only got 18 inches of clearance, you know, that drops down
to inches of clearance when when we're doing our landings
and we're trained for it, we're prepared for it. We're confident in it.
And the challenges you wouldn't have in a normal airplane.
Very impressive.
What is a passenger jet at very, very old
can do the job of it does is a big rocket.