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A senior executive at Virgin Orbit has blasted his fellow bosses in a parting shot following the company’s collapse.
Tony Gingiss, chief operating officer of the satellite launch firm, said employees ‘deserved better than this’ in a lengthy apology email sent across the entire business.
Virgin Orbit chief executive Dan Hart with Richard Branson
‘You have been part of something audacious, challenging, and fulfilling [but] you simply did not have the leadership or opportunity to demonstrate to the world what you can fully do and how this product could be an enduring force in the market,’ he said.
The email seemed to target Virgin Orbit’s chief executive Dan Hart, although Gingiss did not mention him by name. ‘I’m sorry that I was not able to convince our leader and board to take a different path to give us more time to figure things out,’ the email said.
Virgin Orbit, which was set up by Sir Richard Branson in 2017 as a spin-out from his space tourism business Virgin Galactic, filed for bankruptcy in the US on Tuesday as it failed to raise enough cash to keep itself afloat.
It came after a failed mission from the Spaceport Cornwall in January left the company scrambling for cash.
Gingiss, an aeronautical engineer and the former boss of Oneweb Satellites, a joint venture between Boeing and British communication firm Oneweb, was among 675 Virgin Orbit employees laid off last month.
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