LauncherOne to Operate from Japan’s Oita Prefecture

Virgin orbit and ANA Holdings, the largest airline in Japan, have agreed to a memorandum of understanding that will result in 20 flights of Virgin’s LauncherOne from Oita, Japan. Included in the deal is a requirement for ANA and industry partners to fund the creation of a new set of mobile ground support equipment to support the LauncherOne system for takeoff from a pre-existing runway, with the eventual goal of making Oita a spaceport, ideally by the end of 2022. To date, Japan’s satellite technology has been bound to fixed launch sites, a weakness they aim to rectify with the inclusion of Virgin’s mobile launch equipment. If successful in their projects, Virgin Orbi