Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two Has a Successful Second Powered Flight

Virgin Galactic Space Ship Two successfully completed its second powered test flight by going  supersonic. Once dropped from its carry plane, White Knight, SS2 climbed to over 70 thousand feet on a 20 second burn of the main rocket engine.  In doing so SS2 went supersonic to mach 1.43 or almost one and a half times the speed of sound.

Virgin plans to start carrying passenger to low Earth orbit in the latter part of 2014.    From the article

• Virgin Galactic, which already has sold more than 650 rides on SpaceShipTwo, ..... Tickets sell for $250,000.

Listen to the pilots talking, on the video below, w just after they fire the main engine....This is definitely an E ticket ride for sure. 






Check out the complete Discovery News article HERE

Film of Virgin Galactic's Space Ship 2's Second Test Flight

On Sept. 5 at 8am, Virgin's White Knight 2 took off carrying Space Ship 2 for it's second powered test flight.

At 46,000 feet, pilots Mark Stucky and Clint Nichols released Space Ship 2 and fired their rocket engine, for a 20 second burn, a short time later.

During the burn they climbed to 69000 feet and attained a speed of 1.43 mach.

This flight was to test the engine of course but another facet of the unusual craft they wanted to put through it's paces was the movable tail section, which can be moved through 65 degrees of motion.  The purpose of which is to allow the ship to reenter the denser atmosphere and give the pilots a much easier controlled vehicle as it descends.   Where the tail can be rotated back to it's launch position for landing.

Virgin is still looking towards 2014 to begin flying passenger using a fleet of five Spaceship 2 type vehicles. 

Flying With White Knight & Space Ship 2

According to an article in Boing Boing Virgin put on quite a media blitz for the opening of Virgin America's new Terminal 2 at the San Francisco International airport. In this short film we see White Knight and Space Ship 2 flying in close formation with the media junket jet that Virgin provided. There are more pics of the event and another short film of the landing at the Boing boing site here

Virgin Galactic 18 months away from first flight

According to France24 via Boing Boing: Richard Branson has gone on record recently as saying that Virgin Galactic is on track to offer commercial space travel within 18 months, and that space hotels are next on the drawing board.

Galactic has already collected 45 million dollars in deposits from more than 330 people who have reserved seats aboard the six-person craft. You will recall that full ticket prices start at 200k.

Of course Branson doesn't stop at just space hotels. From the France24 article

• "We are looking at hotels in space. We love the moon," the tycoon said, adding that he was also interested in launching "small satellites into space" for the benefit of schools and universities.

Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo will take first flight soon

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for bringing this New-Scientist article to us:

Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo is set to take is maiden flight very soon. The flight will be the first of dozens planned for the high-altitude craft, which could become the first privately-owned vehicle to carry tourists on sub orbital flights that at their highest will have space tourists in free fall for several minutes. The high-altitude plane is designed to loft an eight-passenger craft called SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of 15 kilometres. There, the spaceship will detach from WhiteKnightTwo and fire a rocket to take passengers some 100 km above the Earth. the plane has passed engine and runway tests and taken small hops off the ground. Though White Knight two may look light weight, it is surprising to know its actual dimensions. The plane is comparable in size to Boeing's B-29 Superfortress, a heavy, long-range bomber that flew during World War II.

Though WhiteKnight/Spaceship Two have yet to finish a fairly rigorous schedule, The testing regime should still put the firm on track to take its first passengers to the edge of space as early as 2010.