Virgin Galactic aims to reach space soon
Company could launch tests on space rockets as early as today
MOJAVE >> Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is gearing up to finally send its tourism rocket ship to the edge of space.
If successful, it would be a major step toward the longdelayed dream of commercial space tourism.
The next test flight could come as early as Thursday with two pilots taking Virgin Space Ship Unity high above California’s Mojave Desert. A company statement says the next stage of testing aims to “reach a space altitude for the first time.”
“Although this could happen as soon as Thursday morning, the nature of flight test means that it may take us a little longer to get to that This photo provided by Virgin Galactic shows the VSS Unity craft during a supersonic flight during a test earlier this year.
milestone,” the statement said. Space begins at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers); the last test flight was at 32 miles (52 kilometers).
Reaching that space threshold would demonstrate significant progress toward
the start of commercial flights that were promised more than a decade ago. Virgin Galactic’s development of its spaceship took far longer than expected and endured a setback when the first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot.
More than 600 people have committed up to $250,000 for rides in the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. They have been waiting years to feel the kick of the rocket’s ignition, a near-vertical high-speed ascent into the blackness of space and several minutes of weightlessness with a view of the Earth far below.
The spaceship isn’t launched from the ground but is carried beneath a special plane to an altitude around 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). It then detaches from the plane, ignites its rocket engine and climbs. The rocket is shut down and the craft coasts to the top of its climb — and then begins a descent slowed and stabilized by unique “feathering” technology. The twin tails temporarily rotate upward to increase drag, then return to a