Main Engine Cut Off

Workers will be attaching the pylon that holds LauncherOne to the aircraft’s left wing in the next few days, he said. “If everything goes well there, we’ll conduct our first captive carry test,” he said. The flight will take place from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Only a single captive carry flight is currently scheduled, he said, but added “it doesn’t preclude us from doing another if needed.” That test will also include demonstrating the deployment mechanism, releasing the inert LauncherOne test article to drop back to Earth.

If that flight is a success, Eisele said the company would be ready to conduct its first orbital test of LauncherOne later this summer. “We’re hoping to be ready to fly by the end of the summer, but the precursors there are making sure everything goes well with the captive carry test and all the other test data we have to derive from that,” he said. “We have our first orbital rocket ready to go on the factory floor, so it really is pending just a few of these final qual tests.”