Virgin Orbit’s first night launch a success; UK mission next
维珍轨道首次夜间发射成功；下一个英国任务
Virgin Orbit’s air-launched rocket carried seven small CubeSats into orbit on the company’s first nighttime mission late Friday night off the coast of California, helping clear the way for teams to base the next Virgin Orbit launch from the United Kingdom later this year.
周五晚些时候，维珍轨道公司的空射火箭在加利福尼亚海岸外首次执行夜间任务，将7颗小立方体卫星送入轨道，为团队在今年晚些时候从英国发射维珍轨道扫清了道路。
The satellites deployed by the LauncherOne rocket will demonstrate new technologies sponsored by the U.S. military and NASA.
发射火箭部署的卫星将展示美国军方和美国宇航局赞助的新技术。
Part of Virgin Group founded by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit has now notched four consecutive successful missions with its light-class LauncherOne rocket. The launch late Friday marked the fifth flight of the LauncherOne rocket overall, following a failed inaugural test launch in May 2020.
维珍轨道公司是由亿万富作为亿万富翁企业家理查德·布兰森（RichardBranson）创立的维珍集团（Virgin Group）的一部分，维珍轨道（Virgin Orbit）凭借其轻型运载火箭一号（LauncherOne）已连续四次成功完成任务。在2020年5月首次试射失败后，周五晚些时候的发射标志着LaunchOne火箭的第五次飞行。
Friday’s mission began with the departure of Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing 747 carrier jet with the 70-foot-long (21.3-meter) LauncherOne rocket from Mojave and Air and Space Port in California at around 10:50 p.m. PDT Friday (1:50 a.m. EDT; 0550 GMT Saturday).
星期五的任务开始于太平洋夏令时星期五晚上10:50左右（美国东部夏令时上午1:50；格林威治标准时间星期六早上5:50），维珍轨道公司改装的波音747运输机携带70英尺长（21.3米）的发射器一枚火箭从莫哈韦和加利福尼亚州的航空航天港起飞。
A flight crew consisting of two pilots and three launch engineers accompanied the rocket airborne on the modified 747 jumbo jet. The jet flew off the coast of Southern California and lined up with the mission’s southeast trajectory over the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego.
由两名飞行员和三名发射工程师组成的飞行机组陪同火箭乘坐改装后的747巨型喷气式飞机升空。这架喷气式飞机从南加州海岸起飞，在圣地亚哥以西的太平洋上空与任务的东南轨迹对齐。
Chief pilot Eric Bippert and co-pilot Mathew Stannard pitched the carrier aircraft, known as “Cosmic Girl,” into a climb angle of nearly 30 degrees. Stannard, a pilot on loan from the UK’s Royal Air Force, sent the command to release the 57,000-pound (26-metric ton) LauncherOne rocket from a pylon under the 747’s left wing at 11:53 p.m. PDT (2:53 a.m. EDT; 0653 GMT).
首席飞行员埃里克·比佩特和副飞行员马修·斯坦纳德将这架被称为“宇宙女孩”的航空母机送入近30度的爬升角。斯坦纳德是从英国皇家空军借来的飞行员，他发出命令，于太平洋夏令时下午11:53（美国东部夏令时凌晨2:53；格林威治时间0653）从747左翼的一个塔架上释放57000磅（26公吨）的发射器一号火箭。
Four seconds later, the rocket’s kerosene-fueled NewtonThree engine ignited with 73,500 pounds of thrust for a three-minute burn to propel the LauncherOne vehicle out of the atmosphere. A second stage NewtonFour engine took over the mission after separation of the first stage, followed less than a minute later by jettison of the payload fairing that protected the CubeSat payloads during launch preps and the early phases of the ascent into space.
四秒钟后，火箭的煤油燃料的牛顿三号发动机以73500磅的推力点火燃烧三分钟，将运载火箭一号驱逐出大气层。在第一级分离后，第二级牛顿四号发动机接管了任务，不到一分钟后，丢弃了有效载荷整流罩，该整流罩在发射准备和升空早期阶段保护了立方体卫星有效载荷。
The rocket reached a preliminary orbit after a five-and-a-half minute upper stage firing. A second burn of the NewtonFour upper stage engine — lasting just five seconds — placed the mission’s seven CubeSat payloads into a near-circular orbit about 310 miles (500 kilometers) in altitude, at an inclination of 45 degrees to the equator.
火箭在五分钟半的上段点火后到达初步轨道。牛顿四号（NewtonFour）上级发动机的第二次燃烧（持续时间仅为5秒）将任务中的七个立方体卫星（CubeSat）有效载荷送入一个接近圆形的轨道，该轨道的高度约为310英里（500公里），与赤道呈45度角。
The CubeSat payloads began deploying from the rocket about 55 minutes into the mission.
CubeSat有效载荷在执行任务55分钟后开始从火箭上部署。
Virgin Orbit confirmed an on-target deployment for the seven CubeSat payloads, and declared success.
维珍轨道公司确认了七个立方体卫星有效载荷的目标部署，并宣布成功。
“We are honored to be supporting and delivering for the U.S. Space Force and the U.S. Department of Defense at such a critical juncture for national security space, our nation, and our world,” said Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit’s CEO. “An incredibly talented Virgin Orbit team and our LauncherOne system continue to demonstrate a track record of success for our spacecraft customers and that was confirmed again today.”
维珍轨道公司首席执行官丹·哈特表示：“在国家安全、太空、国家和世界的关键时刻，我们很荣幸能够为美国太空部队和美国国防部提供支持和服务。”。“一支才华横溢的维珍轨道团队和我们的发射器系统继续为我们的航天器客户展示了成功的记录，这一点今天再次得到证实。”
The launch was delayed two days to resolve an issue related to the temperature of propellants
发射推迟了两天，以解决与推进剂温度有关的问题
The Space Force awarded Virgin Orbit a $35 million contract in 2020 for three launches carrying Space Test Program payloads. The military calls the contract STP-S28, and the mission Friday night, known STP-S28A, was the first of the three launches contracted with Virgin Orbit.
2020年，太空部队授予维珍轨道公司一份价值3500万美元的合同，用于三次运载太空测试项目有效载荷的发射。军方称合同为STP-S28，周五晚上的任务称为STP-S28A，是与维珍轨道公司签订的三次发射合同中的第一次。
The Space Force assigned payloads to the launch though the military’s Space Test Program, a unit that manages research and tech demo experiments in orbit. Virgin Orbit nicknamed the flight “Straight Up” in honor of a breakthrough single from singer Paula Abdul released on Virgin Records in 1988.
太空部队通过军方的太空测试项目为发射分配有效载荷，该项目负责管理轨道上的研究和技术演示实验。维珍轨道公司昵称这次飞行为“直线上升”，以纪念歌手保拉·阿卜杜勒1988年在维珍唱片公司发行的突破性单曲。
Two of the payloads deployed by the LauncherOne rocket are sponsored by NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative, in which the space agency pays for launch services for satellites research and technology demonstration satellites.
LaunchOne火箭部署的两个有效载荷由美国宇航局的立方卫星发射计划赞助，该计划由宇航局支付卫星研究和技术演示卫星的发射服务费用。
One of the NASA-supported missions is the Compact Total Irradiance Monitor-Flight Demonstration, or CTIM-FD, satellite developed at the University of Colorado Boulder. The briefcase-size satellite will demonstrate the capability for a CubeSat to host an instrument to monitor total solar irradiance, the total amount of solar energy entering Earth’s atmosphere, helping drive changes in the planet’s climate.
美国宇航局支持的任务之一是紧凑型总辐照度监测器飞行演示，或CTIM-FD，该卫星由科罗拉多大学博尔德分校开发。这颗公文包大小的卫星将展示立方体卫星承载一个仪器的能力，以监测太阳总辐照度，即进入地球大气层的太阳能总量，帮助推动地球气候的变化。
The instrument on the CTIM-FD satellite is about one-tenth the mass of sensors with similar capability flying on larger satellites and outside the International Space Station.
CTIM-FD卫星上的仪器质量约为在较大卫星上和国际空间站外飞行的具有类似能力的传感器质量的十分之一。
The 7.5-pound (3.4-kilogram) GPX2 satellite from NASA’s Langley Research Center will demonstrate commercial off-the-shelf GPS receivers that could be used on future small satellite missions for autonomous close-proximity operations, such as formation flying or docking.
来自美国宇航局兰利研究中心的7.5磅（3.4公斤）GPX2卫星将演示商用现成GPS接收器，可用于未来小型卫星任务中的自主近距离操作，如编队飞行或对接。
The NACHOS 2 CubeSat from Los Alamos National Laboratory also flying on Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket. NACHOS 2 will launch on a mission to demonstrate a new miniature imaging instrument to pinpoint sources of trace gases — natural emissions and air pollution generated by human activity — in the Earth’s atmosphere.
洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室的NACHOS 2 CubeSat也在维珍轨道的LaunchOne火箭上飞行。NACHOS 2号将发射一项任务，演示一种新的微型成像仪器，以精确定位地球大气层中痕量气体的来源——自然排放物和人类活动产生的空气污染。
In a scheduling coincidence, a similar satellite named NACHOS 1 deployed in orbit from a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft earlier in the week after departing the International Space Station.
巧合的是，在本周早些时候，一颗名为NACHOS 1的类似卫星在离开国际空间站后从诺斯罗普格鲁曼天鹅座航天器部署在轨道上。
The hyperspectral imagers on the NACHOS satellites have enough sensitivity to connect sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to specific volcanoes, cities, neighborhoods, and individual power plants, officials said. Hyperspectral imagers were once bulky instruments that required hosting by a larger satellite, but NACHOS is the first CubeSat to carry such an imager.
官员说，NACHOS卫星上的高光谱成像仪具有足够的灵敏度，可以将二氧化硫和二氧化氮连接到特定的火山、城市、社区和单个发电厂。高光谱成像仪曾经是大型仪器，需要由更大的卫星托管，但NACHOS是第一个携带这种成像仪的CubeSat。
Hyperspectral instruments are tuned to resolving the chemical fingerprints of molecules, in the atmosphere or on Earth’s surface.
高光谱仪器可以用来解析大气或地球表面分子的化学指纹。
The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command also launched the Gunsmoke-L mission on Virgin Orbit’s rocket. Gunsmoke-L is the next in a line of small Army satellites designed to support tactical military operations. Details about Gunsmoke-L’s mission are classified, but the Army has said a previous Gunsmoke mission tested technology to deliver timely overhead surveillance imagery to battlefield commanders.
美国陆军空间和导弹防御司令部还利用维珍轨道的火箭发射了Gunsmome-L任务。Gunsmome-L是一系列小型军用卫星中的下一颗，旨在支持战术军事行动。关于炮火-L任务的细节是保密的，但陆军表示，之前的炮火任务测试了向战场指挥官及时提供高空监视图像的技术。
Another CubeSat mission on the LauncherOne rocket was MISR-B, a modular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance payload for U.S. Special Operations Command.
发射一号火箭上的另一个立方体卫星任务是MISR-B，它是美国特别行动司令部的模块化情报、监视和侦察有效载荷。
The Air Force Research Laboratory also launched a small satellite named Recurve to demonstrate adaptive radio technology that could more efficiently route data to military forces.
空军研究实验室还发射了一颗名为RECVE的小卫星，以演示自适应无线电技术，该技术可以更有效地将数据路由到军队。
The Slingshot 1 CubeSat from the Aerospace Corp. hosts multiple experiments, including radio communications instruments, and a laser transmitter to demonstrate high-bandwidth data links with Earth. The 42-pound (19-kilogram) Slingshot 1 spacecraft also carries an experimental hydrogen peroxide propulsion unit, and cameras for Earth-imaging and self-inspection.
来自航空航天公司的弹弓1号立方体卫星进行了多项实验，包括无线电通信仪器和激光发射器，以演示与地球的高带宽数据链路。42磅（19公斤）的“弹弓1号”航天器还携带一个实验性过氧化氢推进装置和用于地球成像和自检的摄像机。
Virgin Orbit hopes the successful mission Friday night will be a springboard to ramp up he company’s launch cadence. Since the inaugural LauncherOne flight in May 2020, Virgin Orbit has averaged about one launch every six months.
维珍轨道公司希望周五晚上的成功任务将成为提高该公司发射节奏的跳板。自2020年5月首次发射一次以来，维珍轨道平均每六个月发射一次。
In a media briefing before the most recent launch, Hart said Virgin Orbit aims for four to six missions this year. Two launches are now complete since the start of 2022.
在最近一次发射前的一次媒体吹风会上，哈特说，维珍轨道计划今年执行四到六次任务。自2022年初以来，两次发射现已完成。
The launch Friday night was Virgin Orbit’s first nighttime mission. Hart said team wanted to demonstrate their ability to conduct nighttime launch operations before they are required on future missions. The STP-S28A mission was not constrained to a specific launch window, and could have launched in daytime or nighttime, Hart said.
周五晚上的发射是维珍轨道的首次夜间任务。哈特说，该团队希望在未来的任务需要之前，展示他们进行夜间发射操作的能力。哈特说，STP-S28A任务不受特定发射窗口的限制，可以在白天或夜间发射。
“We have some of those (night launches) on our books that are required, and we want to make sure that we do them first in our backyard here in Mojave,” Hart said in a pre-launch conference call with reporters.
哈特在发布会前与记者举行的电话会议上表示：“我们的书中有一些（夜间发布）是必需的，我们希望确保首先在我们位于莫哈韦的后院进行这些活动。”。
One of those night missions is next on Virgin Orbit’s launch schedule, when the company will stage a mission from Newquay Airport in Cornwall. The company’s 747 carrier aircraft will release the rocket over the ocean off the coast of Cornwall, and the mission will be the first orbital-class launch based from the United Kingdom.
其中一个夜间任务是维珍轨道发射计划的下一个任务，届时该公司将在康沃尔的纽基机场执行任务。该公司的747舰载机将在康沃尔海岸的海面上发射火箭，该任务将是第一次从英国进行轨道级发射。
A suite of CubeSat payloads from the United States and the UK will ride Virgin Orbit’s rocket into a polar, sun-synchronous orbit. Virgin Orbit officials said the orbital parameters for the upcoming UK mission will require the rocket to launch at night.
来自美国和英国的一组立方体卫星有效载荷将乘坐维珍轨道的火箭进入极地太阳同步轨道。维珍轨道的官员说，即将到来的英国任务的轨道参数将要求火箭在夜间发射。
Hart said before the STP-S28A mission that the first of at least two launches Virgin Orbit plans to base out of Cornwall could take off as soon as September. Earlier this year, officials hoped to launch the mission in mid-2022.
哈特在STP-S28A任务之前表示，维珍轨道计划的至少两次发射中的第一次将在康沃尔基地发射，最快可能在9月发射。今年早些时候，官员们希望在2022年年中启动该任务。
Virgin Orbit has touted the benefits of its mobile launch system, with the 747 carrier jet able to stage missions from conventional airports around the world. Alongside its home base at Mojave Air and Space Port and advanced planning for missions from the UK, Virgin Orbit has agreements with international governments that could lead to launches in Japan and Brazil. The company has also completed preliminary planning for future missions from Guam.
维珍轨道公司（Virgin Orbit）吹嘘其移动发射系统的优势，747型航空母机能够从世界各地的常规机场执行任务。除了总部设在莫哈韦航空航天港和英国的先进计划外，维珍轨道公司还与国际政府达成协议，可能会在日本和巴西进行发射。该公司还完成了关岛未来特派团的初步规划。
Hart said a new mission control center in Cornwall was set up to follow the STP-S28A mission, practicing for future launch operations there. Virgin Orbit is also working on a payload integration facility in Cornwall. The company builds LauncherOne rockets at its headquarters in Long Beach, California.
哈特说，在康沃尔州建立了一个新的任务控制中心，以执行STP-S28A任务，为未来的发射操作进行练习。维珍轨道公司还在康沃尔郡开发有效载荷集成设施。该公司在其位于加利福尼亚长滩的总部制造LaunchOne火箭。
“All things are moving in a good direction for Cornwall,” Hart said.
哈特说：“康沃尔的一切都朝着好的方向发展。”。
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