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More than just layoffs: the company is pretty much dead, unable to secure new funding.

Is that more to do with failures specific to Virgin Orbit, or more to do with the hype machine moving on from the commercial space launch industry in general?

Bit of column A and bit of column B, for sure, but VO has probably been one of the worst at overhyping and underdelivering.

It doesn't help that they went full-Brexit, that sort of thing is bound to be offputting to foreign capital.

> It doesn't help that they went full-Brexit, that sort of thing is bound to be offputting to foreign capital.

WDYM? Virgin Orbital Inc. are incorporated in the US and listed on the NASDAQ.

They made a lot out of the fact that they'd be launching from the UK, pandering to governments desperate to somehow prove that the country isn't backsliding after brexit.

It’s also worth mentioning the VSS disaster, which ended up setting all of Branson’s space flight endeavors back significantly and you could probably make the case indirectly caused the downfall of this subsidiary

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSS_Enterprise_crash

I don't understand why it needs "funding"--I was under the impression it was a subsidiary of whatever the Virgin parent company is, but I guess I was wrong.

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