Space rocket engineers divert skills to create a mass-producible ventilator
Space rocket engineers divert skills to create a mass-producible ventilator

Virgin Orbit has developed a new mass-producible bridge ventilator to help in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The Californian-based company, usually focuses its workforce on building rockets for space launch, but have diverted their skills to help the fight the pandemic worldwide.

Virgin Orbit has been consulting with the Bridge Ventilator Consortium, a group formed to spawn and nurture efforts to build producible, simple ventilators to aid in the current Covid-19 crisis.

Pending clearance by the FDA, the group hope to have the ventilators in mass-production by early April, to deliver units into the hands of first responders and healthcare professionals as soon as possible.