It was an air-launched rocket, designed to carry smallsat payloads of up to 300 kg (660 lb) into Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO),[3] following air launch from a carrier aircraft at high altitude.

The rocket was carried to the upper atmosphere on a modified Boeing 747-400, named Cosmic Girl, and released over ocean.

The first successful flight was on 17 January 2021, which delivered a payload of 10 CubeSats to low Earth orbit (LEO).

[8] From 2007 to 2015, Virgin had intended LauncherOne to be a somewhat smaller vehicle with a 200 kg (440 lb) payload to low Earth orbit.

[11] The LauncherOne configuration was proposed to be an expendable, two-stage, liquid-fueled rocket air-launched from a White Knight Two carrier aircraft.

[12] This would make it a similar configuration to that used by Orbital Sciences' Pegasus, or a smaller version of the StratoLaunch air-launched rocket system.

[13][14] In October 2012, Virgin announced that LauncherOne would be designed so that it could place 200 kg (440 lb) in Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).

In 2015, Virgin Galactic established a 14,000 m2 (150,000 sq ft) research, development, and manufacturing center for LauncherOne at Long Beach Airport, California.

[17] The company reported in March 2015, that they were on schedule to begin test flights of LauncherOne with its NewtonThree engine by the end of 2016,[18] but they did not achieve that objective.

[21] News reports in September 2015 indicated that the heavier payload of 200 kg (440 lb) was to be achieved by longer fuel tanks and use of the recently qualified NewtonThree engine, but this also meant that the Virgin-developed carrier aircraft White Knight Two would no longer be able to lift the rocket to launch altitude, so in December 2015, Virgin announced a change to the carrier plane for LauncherOne to carry the heavier payload.

[27] In the event, no LauncherOne test flights occurred in 2018 and were delayed further, to December 2019, with only the carrier aircraft beginning to fly in 2018.

The reduced fuel flow caused the engine to operate at temperatures higher than expected resulting in damage to nearby components and subsequent early shutdown.

It was originally intended that the first stage will be powered by a scaled-up design of the same basic technology as NewtonOne, called NewtonTwo, with 211.5 kN (47,500 lbf) of thrust.

[23] In December 2015, Virgin announced a change to the carrier plane for LauncherOne, as well as a substantially-larger design point for the rocket itself.

The carrier aircraft will now be a Boeing 747, which will in turn allow a larger LauncherOne to carry heavier payloads than previously planned.

The modification work on the particular Boeing 747 that Virgin has purchased is expected to be completed in 2016, to be followed by Orbital test launches of the rocket in 2017.

[3] LauncherOne launched from the Cosmic Girl Boeing 747-400 carrier, attached to a pylon on the aircraft's left wing, and released over the ocean at a location depending on the desired orbital inclination.

[3] William Pomerantz of Virgin Orbit stated that any airport that can support a Boeing 747 could have been used, subject to local legislation.