Richard Branson’s Long Beach space-launch company Virgin Orbit to liquidate

Stratolaunch and Rocket Lab USA Inc. are among the buyers for assets of Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc., the bankrupt space-launch company tied to billionaire Richard Branson that until recently employed nearly 700 people in Southern California.

Virgin Orbit will sell its modified Boeing 747, known as Cosmic Girl, to Stratolaunch for $17 million after no better bids emerged, according to bankruptcy court papers filed Tuesday. Meanwhile, Rocket Lab is paying $16.1 million for Virgin Orbit’s primary rocket factory in Long Beach.

The piecemeal sale indicates no adequate bids emerged for the whole of Virgin Orbit during an auction. Launcher Inc. is set to buy a test facility for $2.7 million, court papers show. Vast Space announced a deal recently to acquire Launcher.

The asset disposals, which total more than $35 million, are subject to bankruptcy court approval.

Virgin Orbit thanked stakeholders as it said in a statement that it would cease operations. The company said its technology has made “substantial contributions to the field of commercial rocket launch.”

Virgin Orbit had been exploring options including a possible sale or arrangements that could allow it to continue operating after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in early April. Stratolaunch had earlier made a stalking-horse bid for the 747 jet.

Founded by Branson as an offshoot of his space-tourism venture Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc., Virgin Orbit focused on sending small satellites to space on its LauncherOne rocket. The vehicle is designed to take off not from the ground but from underneath the wing of its Cosmic Girl jet. Virgin Orbit had successfully flown to orbit four times since 2021. It went public via a reverse merger in late 2021.

The company suffered a high-profile failure in January 2023, when its LauncherOne rocket malfunctioned during a mission and failed to reach orbit, causing the loss of all nine satellites on board. The mission, which took off from Britain’s Spaceport Cornwall, was meant to be the first orbital launch to take place from British soil.

Low on cash in mid-March, Virgin Orbit furloughed almost its entire staff during an all-hands meeting as the company searched for a financial lifeline. The company attempted to start some limited operations roughly a week later, as executives negotiated with Texas-based venture capital investor Matthew Brown to potentially inject $200 million into the company.

That deal never materialized, though, and Virgin Orbit halted operations at the end of March. Despite the latest asset sales, no successful bidder was chosen to buy its LauncherOne rockets. At the time of the sale, Virgin Orbit had about half a dozen rockets in various stages of manufacturing, according to the company. It wasn’t immediately clear what would happen with those.