Virgin Orbit had been running low on cash. It reported an operating loss of $US149 million ($225 million) for the first nine months of 2022 during its previous earnings announcement. It had also been raising periodic funding from Virgin Investments. The company is set to report earnings for the fourth quarter of 2022 on March 29.

Virgin Orbit is also recovering from a high-profile launch failure that occurred in January. It had been set to launch nine small satellites out of Spaceport Cornwall in what was supposed to be the first orbital rocket launch from British soil. The rocket,however,suffered a mishap during flight and never reached orbit,leading to the loss of all satellites on board.