LauncherOne was a two-stage launch vehicle, air-launched from a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft, designed to deliver 300 kg of payload to low Earth orbit.

[2] On December 30, 2021, Virgin Orbit underwent a SPAC merger with NextGen Acquisition Corp, and became a publicly traded company (symbol VORB) at the NASDAQ stock exchange.

After the second failure in January 2023 and amid an inability to secure additional financing,[5] the company laid off staff and suspended operations in March 2023, finalizing Chapter 11 bankruptcy auction on May 22, 2023.

[10] LauncherOne was deployed from the left (port) wing of a retrofitted Boeing 747, 33,000 feet (10 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean.

[22] In 2022, Virgin Orbit announced plans to acquire additional 747s with the ability to transport the rocket and ground support equipment internally.

[23][24] The company from which it was spun off, Virgin Galactic, continued to focus on two other capabilities: human suborbital spaceflight operations and advanced aerospace design, manufacturing, and testing.

[25] In October 2019, Virgin Orbit announced that Matthew Stannard was joining as a pilot on a three-year contract.

Stannard had previously served in the Royal Air Force as a test and evaluation pilot notably on Typhoon jets.

[28] When the SPAC merger was announced in August 2021, Virgin Orbit aimed to be profitable on an EBITDA-basis by end of Q4 2024.

[29] On March 16, 2023, Virgin Orbit announced a pausing of operations and furloughing of nearly its entire staff, while seeking additional funding.

[30] Matthew Brown Companies, a Texas and Hawaii based venture capital firm led by Dallas-based Matthew Brown, a businessman,[31][32] made a $200 million tender for the company but ultimately fell through.

[38][40][41] In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Virgin Orbit announced it was a partner with the University of California Irvine and the University of Texas at Austin in a new venture to build simplified mechanical ventilators — specifically "bridge ventilators" for partially recovered patients and patients not in intensive care — to address the critical global shortage of ventilators.