Cosmic Girl

Cosmic Girl is a Boeing 747-400 aircraft owned and operated by Virgin Orbit and used as the carrier aircraft for the LauncherOne rocket. LauncherOne is attached under the left wing between the fuselage and the left inboard engine, then carried to a height of around 11 km (35,000 feet) before being released and continuing under its own power.

Cosmic Girl was originally a passenger aircraft owned by Virgin Atlantic. It was transferred to Virgin Galactic in 2015, then to the new subsidiary Virgin Orbit in 2017. Its first launch attempt was in 2020 and resulted in failure. The first successful launch was in January 2021.