
The U.S. Department of Defense has purchased its first flight on LauncherOne, Virgin Orbit's new satellite-launching rocket, the company said Nov. 16.Under an other-transaction-agreement (OTA) award from the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center and the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), the launch will occur as early as January 2019, Virgin said. The Long Beach, Calif.-based firm recently created a subsidiary, VOX Space LLC, to serve such national security customers.The launch will involve “technology demonstration satellites” and will give…