Virgin Orbit
Virgin Orbit owned by British Billionaire Sir Richard Branson hope to fly small satellites with their LauncherOne launch system sometime in 2018/2019.
Two stage LauncherOne rocket as of May 2018 (copyright Ars/Virgin Orbit)
factory and offices in Long Beach
Will Pomerantz vice president at Virgin Orbit the company’s first employee.
LauncherOne will use a 747 aircraft 'Cosmic Girl' to ascend to around 11km (~6.8 miles) where it will be dropped and fire its first stage rocket engine 'NewtonThree' then finally its second stage rocket engine 'NewtonFour' to reach space.
LauncherOne on Cosmic Girl 747 - Virgin Orbit
The rocket engines burns a highly refined form of kerosene known as RP-1 and LOX.
Virgin Orbit hopes to use LauncherOne to launch payloads weighing up to half a ton into low Earth orbit for around $10 million.
As LauncherOne will be able to take off from a standard runway Virgin Orbit is looking to launch from the UK, the UAE as well as from its USA New Mexico location in the future.
The 1.28m-wide fairing can accommodate small satellites up to 500kg and place them in a wide range of low Earth orbits.
You can check out their current Manifest here Also here is news of their Military "ARTEMIS program" contract with the Royal Air-force in the UK More info here (admittedly a small contract a bit like the UK's robotic Moon program spacebit )Virgin Orbit also have a UK contract to launch from Cornwall UK https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/virgin-orbit-and-spaceport-cornwall
First UK Launch 2023