Sir Richard Branson managed to handle a reverse take-over of his Virgin Galactic space tourism business by a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) and a stock market listing in October 2019.

Now he is reportedly trying a similar scheme with Virgin Orbit.

Branson is looking for another SPAC, this time targeting NextGeneration Acquisition II, which has a New York market listing and the reports suggest there could be a $3 billion benefit to Virgin Orbit.

Virgin Orbit was spun out of Virgin Galactic some 4 years ago.

Virgin Orbit uses a converted Virgin Airways Boeing 747-400 (‘Cosmic Girl’) and which carries a rocket under its port wing. The aircraft takes off and discharges the Launcher 1 rocket at about 35,000 ft (10,700m) where the rocket carries on to its target hight before deploying its cargo satellites.

The Launcher 1 rockets can carry smallish craft, totalling about 500 kgs.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Optimism under threat at SES
2. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
3. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
4. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
5. IRIS2 already in trouble?
6. Intelsat contemplates next steps
7. SpaceX: 2.7m customers and $180bn value
8. Boeing, Virgin Galactic in court battle
9. Jupiter-3 a changemaker

Categories: Blogs, Funding, Inside Satellite, Satellite

Tags: Richard Branson, virgin, Virgin Orbit