Modularized Air-Launch with Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne System: Responsive SmallSat Constellation Construction Measured in Hours, Not Months

As small satellites and the constellations they comprise have become increasingly prevalent, there has been greater interest in the value added by agile and responsive launch systems. Responsiveness, defined here as the ability of a launch vehicle to react quickly and positively to changing payload, customer, or situational constraints, is a capability that has largely been enabled by the rise of the smallsat launch industry and introduces a new set of considerations for smallsat mission stakeholders. This work examines the relative advantage of an air-launched small satellite launch vehicle network for rapid deployment of small satellite constellations, using Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne system and three hypothetical constellation architectures.Using a combinatoric approach to analyze the possible launch manifests for hypothetical constellations, the impacts of geographic launch site positioning and launch vehicle recycle time on constellation injection time and thereby time-to-market for the constellation missions’ provided service are examined. It is demonstrated that the air launched architecture requires a third as many launch platforms at fewer activated spaceports than an equivalently performing fixed-site launch network, among other advantages. Gaps in the existing policy framework to support responsive launch as well as a plan for future work within this research area are then identified.