Virgin Orbit UK Space Launch

  • Project Scope ACA International was tasked with transporting an exact prototype of Virgin Orbit’s 70-foot Launcher One rocket to be assembled and positioned in the hustle & bustle of Times Square during the middle of the night, amid New York City’s first significant snowfall of the year in January 2022. The occasion…Virgin Orbit’s IPO on NASDAQ the next morning. The biggest planning challenges for this multi-leg project was space and timing. Virgin Orbit was given only a 24-hour permit in Times Square to to assemble/disassemble and display. After transporting the rocket from the US to Cornwall UK for the June 2021 G7 Summit Meeting, ACA needed to get the rocket returned to the US. For the ocean segment, the 70-foot prototype was disassembled, secured on dollies, loaded and transported in three 40-foot ISO containers, and then reassembled for display in Cornwall and Times Square. Upon arrival back to the US at the Port of Philadelphia, ACA transferred the containers to a staging yard in New Jersey, loading the rocket segments onto flatbed trailers for a late-night transport and delivery to Times Square, where the reassembly of the rocket was completed and placed on public display for the 9:30AM stock market opening. At the conclusion of the Times Square display, the rocket was disassembled, the sections loaded back onto trailers and returned to the New Jersey staging area. The rocket sections were then loaded back into ISO containers for their coast-to-coast road journey home to Virgin Orbit’s Mohave facility.

VORB NASDAQ Debut