His secondment is part of a wider investigation by the UK Ministry of Defence, which plans to one day use Virgin Orbit to launch military satellites from the UK. As you'd expect given his background with the RAF, he brings a bright intellect, incredible attention to detail, and an excellent experience base, in addition to his world-class piloting skills,' Virgin Orbit chief operating officer Tony Gingiss told the BBC. 'Stanny has been a wonderful addition to our team. He is on a three-year secondment from the Royal Air Force, as part of a project designed to help the RAF understand the role of small satellite launches. Pilot 'Stanny' was the one to pull the trigger on the 70ft rocket, once the aircraft reached 35,000ft. 'Our ability to achieve a 45-degree inclination out of the West Coast increases significantly the utility of a launch out of the West Coast,' 'We decided to fly the airplane further out over the Pacific so that we could fly along the coast of South America without going over landmasses,' Dan Hart, president and chief executive of Virgin Orbit, told SpaceNews. The launch saw the team send the rocket at a 45 degree inclination up to a 310 mile orbital position, which they achieve by shifting the drop point. 'We're proving with this launch that we can get to orbital inclinations and geometries that, probably if you asked us a year ago, we would have said, 'Well, maybe.' 'We are going to an orbit that we believe has never been achieved from the West Coast,' Tony Gingiss, chief operating officer of Virgin Orbit told reporters. Virgin Orbit has already put 19 satellites into space using the Cosmic Girl and Launcher-One system, but the firm said prior to the launch that this mission was different. VirginOrbit tweeted after the launch: 'And there we have it, folks! We've just heard from Mission Control that successfully reignited and deployed all customer spacecraft into their target orbit.' It includes satellites from the US Department of Defense, which are experiments in space-based communications and in-space navigation, as well as a satellite by British firm Spire to detect space debris in low Earth orbit. This launch was given the mission name, Above the Clouds, and was one of the first to launch into a 45 degree, 310 mile orbit, from the West Coast of the US. The jet, known as Cosmic Girl, flew up 35,000ft over the Pacific Ocean for an hour, before RAF pilot Matthew 'Stanny' Stannard unleashed the LauncherOne rocket. Richard Branson's space firm put the small satellites into a 310 mile orbit, launching from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at 16:39 ET (21:39 GMT) on Thursday. "There's only I think a couple of handfuls of countries in the world that have the capability of sending satellites to space from their own countries and now 480 countries can use Virgin Orbit," he said.Virgin Orbit has successfully launched seven new satellites into space, on a rocket that was unleashed from an adapted Boeing 747 flying over the Pacific Ocean. "The tremendous thing about using a 747 is we can put them into any orbit from anywhere in the world," Branson said from the British Virgin Islands during the company's launch webcast. It touts the mobility of its air-launch system compared to the limitations of fixed launch sites. The company is targeting the market for launching small satellites. Virgin Orbit, founded in 2017 by British billionaire Richard Branson, went public last month. The company's first launch, a demonstration flight, failed in May 2020. Two previous launches carried multiple satellites into orbit in January and June 2021. It was Virgin Orbit's third launch carrying satellites for customers. The payload included satellites for the US Defence Department, the Polish company SatRevolution and the international company Spire Global. While waiting for confirmation of the deployment of the satellites, the company tweeted: "Congratulations to our customers and welcome to space!"