Ask Dan Hart how he caught the space bug, and he tells you much the same story as everyone else I’ve spoken to. “It might have had something to do with staying up late one summer evening and watching the first humans lay their feet on the moon.” Hart was just eight then, but that passion eventually parlayed into a monster 34-year stint at Boeing, where he worked with the US government, and NASA, on small satellite systems. Still, he was a company man. But one day in 2017, he took a call out of the blue from the Virgin Group, and later, Richard Branson himself, asking if he fancied blasting out of his comfort zone to helm a project that still today seems utterly preposterous. 

Virgin Galactic had spent two decades working on its plans to send tourists into space but had also been quietly experimenting with new tech that would enable rockets to launch not from traditional ground stations – but aircraft. It wasn’t a new concept – NASA was trying it from underneath B-50s back in the 50s – but nobody had ever nailed its execution. The back-to-the-future idea was canny because it meant satellites could be launched from almost any airport, anywhere. Just like that, space would be the preserve of all countries – not just those with the money and geography to support it.

The breakthrough came when Virgin realised the solution was in their hangar all along. Boeing 747s – a once mainstay of Virgin Atlantic’s fleet – have a little-known capacity to attach a fifth engine, enabling it to carry a rocket. Plus, with the aircraft being retired on mass, the jumbo jet could be bought and operated cheaply, without pilots needing to learn how to fly a new type of space vehicle, with all the messy licences that would incur. “The idea of a new technology for space launch was just something I couldn’t leave behind,” enthuses Hart, now CEO.

It really is as simple as that. After the satellites are fitted underneath the rocket’s nose – or fairing – the projectile is attached underneath the left wing of the 747-400. The aircraft takes off and cruises upwards to its launch position at around 35,000 feet. “The pilot then pulls up on the 747 to a 30° angle because we want the rocket facing the right direction, and we want a bit of upward pitch,” explains Hart. “The other pilot, at the right moment, pushes a button on the panel of the cockpit to release the rocket, which drops – or glides – for about four or five seconds until it’s safely able to start its engines.” Seconds afterwards, the 747 banks right to stay clear of the rocket’s path. 

The 747 is only minimally modified. In fact, the first Jumbo Virgin is using, now named Cosmic Girl, enjoyed a 14-year career with Atlantic as G-VWOW, where it carried more than two million passengers, mainly from London to New York. The team stripped out the cabin interiors of the lower deck and fixed a ‘launch pylon’ on the secret engine mount. (Some trivia: Qantas last lugged a fifth, six-tonne Rolls Royce engine on the left wing in 2016, but just for spares.) Perfecting the technique, says Hart, took years. “It’s not an easy undertaking. It’s a rather large piece of baggage.”

The real challenge was designing a rocket able to be dropped and ignited at just the right time – like a firework in reverse. The LauncherOne was developed and trialled separately on the ground for years. The result is what in the space business is known as a ‘two-stage’ launch vehicle. The first ignition, from ‘NewtonThree’, accelerates the 20-metre-long projectile to 8,000 miles per hour. Once it reaches around 745 miles above the earth’s surface, and its fuel is spent, it detaches from the top half of the rocket. Finally, a second, smaller blast from NewtonFour, kicks off a series of burns to circularise its orbit, before the nose pops open, and the satellites are gently steered towards their final resting place. Atmospheric drag will eventually pull the remnants of the rocket down to earth, where it will safely burn up into the atmosphere.