Virgin Orbit — the rocket company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson — is laying off the vast majority of its workforce as company leadership struggles to secure additional funding. Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket suffers failure on first launch attempt from the UK The company was an early leader among dozens of startups vying to build lightweight rockets for launching smallsats. The company’s stock price was down 16% during trading hours Thursday, and sunk another 40% during after-hours trading