WhiteKnightTwo mothership returns to Mojave
MOJAVE — Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo mothership returned to its birthplace, on Saturday, arriving at the Mojave Air and Space Port for a planned overhaul that will take several months, pushing the flight schedule into mid-2022.
Virgin Galactic operates suborbital spaceflights from Spaceport America in New Mexico using the Mojave-developed SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo aircraft.
The company, last month, announced it was postponing a test flight with the Italian Air Force, scheduled to fly in October, and heading straight to the overhaul period after finding structural problems with the aircraft.
During routine tests and analysis on the aircrafts’ structures, a team found a possible reduction in the strength margins of certain materials used to modify specific joints, which requires further inspection, officials said in a statement.
Given the time that this further testing and analysis requires, officials decided it would be best to perform it alongside planned enhancements to both vehicles.
While the SpaceShipTwo vehicle “Unity” is also scheduled to undergo work in Mojave, it did not appear to arrive with the mothership.
Only WhiteKnightTwo was listed as landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port, at 10:36 a.m., Saturday, according to FlightAware flight tracking.
A photo posted on social media by Virgin Galactic also only mentioned WhiteKnightTwo.
The company stated in August, it planned to ground Unity and the WhiteKnightTwo mothership dubbed “Eve” for maintenance and improvements later this year.
For the Eve mothership, this maintenance period includes “enhancements” to enable the company to increase its flight rate by reducing the time required between each flight from seven to eight weeks, down to four to five weeks.
According to the earlier announcement, these enhancements will be done in Mojave and were expected to be completed in mid-2022. They are intended to increase the number of flights needed between major inspections from 10 to 100.