LauncherOne reaches orbit on second attempt with NASA CubeSats January 17, 2021 After an eight month stand down to resolve issues revealed during the first mission of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket, the company made their second orbital launch attempt on Sunday, January 17. The air-launched rocket successfully carried ten CubeSats to their target orbit for NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program. The cosmic girl aircraft took off at 10:38 PST (18:38 UTC). Launch occurred at 11:39 PST (19:39 UTC), a little under halfway into the four hour launch window that opened at 10:00 PST (18:00 UTC). Backup launch dates were available later in January. The mission began at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, where the Cosmic Girl Boeing 747-400 carrier aircraft departed for the drop zone over the Pacific Ocean. This is the same location that hosted the first LauncherOne mission in May 2020, which failed shortly into first stage flight.