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VI T RGIN ORBI L AUNCH DEMO 2

PRESS GUIDE JANUARY 2021 2 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket ignites in mid-air during the company’s firstLaunch Demo in May 2020. 3 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE “THE BEST WAY OF OF WAY — ANYTHING ANYTHING ABOUT IS BY DOING.” LEARNING RICHARD BRANSON

4 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE ground support equipment on the runway in Mojave. January 30, 2020. Virgin Orbit teammates connect Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne to carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl in late November 2020. Chief Test Pilot Kelly Latimer conducts aflight test with Virgin Orbit’s process ahead of the company’s Launch Demo 2mission. August 2020. Virgin Orbit teammates complete adry run of the payload encapsulation 5 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE will then continue towards its ultimate target of Low Earth Orbit. two-stage LauncherOne vehicle, which will ignite its NewtonThree engine in midair. The flight point —approximately 50 miles south of the Channel Islands —Cosmic Girl will release the Space Port in California before traveling out over the Pacific Ocean. After reaching the drop For this mission, Virgin Orbit’s carrier aircraft Cosmic Girl will depart from the Mojave Air and 20th Educational Launch of NanoSatellites (ELaNa XX)mission. commercial launch capabilities for innovative, risk-tolerant payloads —this flight marks the Launch Services (VCLS) program —an initiative intended to foster the development of new the first time Virgin Orbit will customercarry payloads. Contracted under NASA’s Venture Class The team is excited to have 9CubeSat missions onboard LauncherOne during this test flight, alike. customers a broad variety of small satellite makers and operators —both government and commercial ground-based launch system. Our LauncherOne system enables easier access to space for launches to space, offering more flexibility, agility and responsiveness than any traditional Virgin Orbit’s air-launch technology is revolutionizing how we think about and conduct begins its transition to commercial service. this demonstration test flight will serve as additionalan learning opportunity as our company significant step forward the team took with our first Launch Demo in May earlier thisyear, Launch Demo 2marks Virgin Orbit’s second orbital launch attempt. Building on the MISSION OVERVIEW MISSION 6 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE should that happen, we have additional backup windows in the following weeks. conditions for launch are nominal. Like all rockets, weather or other issues can cause delays; opportunities to launch throughout January. We will only proceed with the mission if all The window for the Launch Demo 2mission opens on Sunday, January 10th, with additional [email protected] out to reach day, please flight on captured photos and B-roll high-quality Toteam. access media in-house our via day entire the However, documenting be will we videographers. or photographers media any invited not have we restrictions, to capacity Due Twitter on us ( follow progresses, mission the as updates real-time For livestreamed. publicly be not will flight test orbital This who are most interested in high inclination orbits. Japan, the we expect Mojave Air and Space Port to remain an attractive option for customers Even as Virgin Orbit brings multiple other launch sites online in places like the U.K.,Guam and polar or sun-synchronous orbits, common for weather and Earth observation satellites. nearby. Additionally, the launch site provides easy access to high inclination orbits such as to staff in Long Beach, as well as our 50 or so teammates based at our rocket engine test site Mojave is an ideal location for Virgin Orbit’s early flight operations, as it is readilyaccessible Administration (FAA) in 2004. in the United States for horizontal spacecraft launches, certified by the Federal Aviation maintenance and storage. With adeep history in aerospace, it is the first facility be to licensed the Mojave Air and Space Port is ahub of flight testing, space industryactivity, and aircraft A two-hour drive north of Virgin Orbit’s manufacturing facility in Long Beach, California, KEEP UP WITH THE ACTION THE UP WITH KEEP LAUNCH SITE TIMING . @Virgin.Orbit ). 7 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE [email protected] 1624516 640 Communications Officer Russell Kendall or submit an email to our press inbox ([email protected] For more information or to set up media interviews, please reach out to Kendall Russell Pilot Chief Bippert Eric VOX President Space Mandy Vaughn Founder, Adventurer, Serial Entrepreneur Branson Richard WHO YOU GONNA CALL? CALL? GONNA YOU WHO OUR PEOPLE

Chief Test Pilot Kelly Latimer Virgin Orbit President andCEO Hart Dan Co-Pilot Todd Ericson ). 8 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE which could one be large satellite or dozens of smaller ones. refrigerator, and on any given flight the rocket will 300ferry kg (660 lb) or more of cargo, The satellites LauncherOne carries may as be small as aloaf of bread or as large as ahome 747-400 called Cosmic Girl. LauncherOne —atwo-stage, expendable rocket launched from under the wing of aBoeing Virgin Orbit provides reliable, responsive and flexible launches for small satellites using makers. satellite small of community space launches more affordable, frequent and inclusive, and by enabling the thriving global barriers that limit full utilization of space for all of humankind. We’ll do this byFounded making by entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit is working to bust open the orbit, and satisfy the ever-increasing demand for dedicated small satellite launch services. LauncherOne comes in. Our goal is to lower the barriers to entry preventing easy access to desperately needs more affordable, flexible and responsive pathways to space. That’s where Large, ground-based rockets have always and still will play akey role, but the market anyone when they’re stuck on the ground. to get involved in the industry than ever before. But even the coolest satellites can’t help less expensive, cracking open an opportunity for more people, governments, and businesses driven largely by anew wave of satellite technology. New age satellites are growing smaller and The ways that we use space to explore, connect and protect our planet are quickly changing, OUR PURPOSE OUR ORBIT VIRGIN ABOUT 9 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE OUR ROCKET vacuum-equivalent thrust 73,500 LBF time run MIN 3 of LauncherOne’s second stage is the typical maximum speed 17,500 MPH of LauncherOne’s first stage is the typical maximum speed 8,000 MPH satellites the a LauncherOne rocket, including is the typical takeoff weight of 57,000 LBM length in FT 70 LAUNCHER NEWTONTHREE ONE of thrust of 5,000 LBF of the desired orbit to allow circularization BURNS 2 Completed in time run 6 MIN NEWTONFOUR of NewtonThree LauncherOne and ignition time between release of SEC 5 has cleared at the point of release of atmosphere that LauncherOne 75% is manufactured in the USA 99+% customers’ satellites customers’ at which we deploy our is the typical altitude 310-745 MI orbit on each flight to deliver we satellites is the typical mass of 650-1,100 LBM PAYLOAD 10 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE to space in early 2021. production at our Long Beach manufacturing facility, the team is targeting asubsequent flight to begin serving our growing manifest of customers. With subsequent rockets already in Following the successful execution of Launch Demo 2,Virgin Orbit intends to quickly pivot day.grow every hugely from our long-term planning, with afactory full of flight hardware that continues to launch vehicles, which often don’t flya second time foryear a or longer. We’vebenefited Our return to flight has taken a significantly shorter amount of time than is typical for new assured us that they were ready to get their payloads onboard our Launch Demo 2flight. appreciated our initial offer to fly another test prior to their mission. Ultimately though, they bad like. NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) were glad to have insight into our plans and informed of our findings and correctiveactions. believeWe it’s critical to share the good and Throughout that process, we’ve remained in lockstep with our friends at NASA, keeping them the realm of possible contributors. structures, specifically — and also proactivelyaddressing issues we didn’t observe but fell into to say, fixing the obvious issues we observed — by increasing the robustness of the endaft and suspenders” approach when it came to implementing tweaks to LauncherOne; that is happened later in the flight. So, as mentioned in our updates since that flight, wetook “belt a quickly learn an enormous amount about what went well, what didn’t, and what might have Thanks to the mountain of data collected during the firstLaunch Demo, we were able to immensely meaningful moment for us as ateam and as acompany. All in all, we proved out the foundational principles of our air-launch operations —an sensors also confirmed that the rocket’sperformance matched our predictions. of our system worked exactly as we designed it to do. Data from hundreds of channels and the rocket’s ignition sequence, and the initial portion of guided, powered flight part — every count to some of the most challenging portions of our flight — release, the controlled drop, In fact, we remain thrilled by just how much did go right: from aperfectly executed terminal during our firstLaunch Demo, we’re extremely proud of what we were able accomplish.to just seven months after our initial launch attempt. Although LauncherOne did not reach space A rigorous investigation and robust testing program has enabled Virgin Orbit to return to flight JOURNEY SO FAR SO JOURNEY 11 VIRGIN ORBIT PRESS GUIDE • • • • • • • • • • • • • TERMS TO KNOW TO TERMS Low Earth Orbit Earth Low responsive, dedicated and affordable launch services for small satellites bound for provides the national security community of the US and allied nations with VOX VOX Space: Space, LLC, is Virgin Orbit’s wholly-owned subsidiary, which LEO to access satellites small to provide NASA by used services of launch class smallest the constitute that awards Contract (VCLS): Services Launch Class Venture Small satellites: Satellites of low mass and size, usually less than 1,100 lb fuel for LauncherOne RP-1: Rocket Propellant-1 —ahighly reformed form of kerosene which we use as the Pylon: WhatPayload: is being sent into orbit, generally asatellite LOX: Liquid oxygen, which we use as the oxidizer for LauncherOne Orbit (LEO):the regionLow Earth between 400 and 1,000 miles above Earth equipment support ground Hammerhead: The staging area on the runway where Virgin Orbit sets up our mobile operations before takeoff, including propellant loading GSE: VCLS contracts for the CubeSats selected through CSLI government payloads, as well as dedicated CubeSat launches from newly selected deployment opportunities or rideshare launches via existing launch services of Educational Launch Nanosatellites of (ELaNa): International Station Space exploration, development, education technology or operations. access to alow-cost pathway to conduct research in the areas of science, LaunchCubeSat Initiative ANASA (CSLI): program that gives CubeSat developers Atlantic Virgin of fleet the from procured 747-400 Orbit’s aircraft, Virgin Girl: carrier Cosmic Ground support equipment; the set of mobile trailers we use for ground the structural mechanism that hooks LauncherOne to Cosmic Girl’s wing PRESS GUIDE JANUARY 2021

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