Meet the women that help Virgin Orbit launch satellites into space

Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl in flight
Virgin Orbit
Natalie Clarkson
by Natalie Clarkson
3 May 2022

Virgin Orbit has an amazing team that does everything from building rockets to preparing ground control for launch to actually launching satellites into orbit. And that team includes some pretty incredible women.

To celebrate some of the women who work for Virgin Orbit, the team created a video to highlight the roles that they perform.

Women are traditionally underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, but Virgin Orbit is working hard to make sure that it achieves gender equality.

“There was a lot of intimidation walking into an incredibly successful company that was really ambitious with their goals,” Madison Telles, systems engineer at Virgin Orbit, said. “And to see that we had so much representation on our first operational launch was really, really special to be a part of because I think it's the next step forward as the industry recognises the value of diversity in their workplace. But also now being at 50% representation it's really great to not be the only woman in the room.”

Nicole Lewis, senior manager of rocket operations at Virgin Orbit, added: “I think as a company there's definitely room to grow and room for improvement to get the company at more of that 50/50 level [of representation]. But it is amazing to see so many females doing so many amazing things.” 

Visit Virgin Orbit to find out more.