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

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Ignites its Rocket

For the first time, Virgin Galactic tested SpaceShipTwo's  rocket motor, and doing so in mid-flight

driving the ship super-sonic!  SS-2 reached a speed of mach 1.2 and climbed apx to 56,000 feet. in altitude.

This puts Virgin another step closer to commercial passenger flights into space.  Girgin Galactic now hopes to make its' first passenger flight in 2014.  Industry experts however say that they would not be at all surprised if the 2014 date proves to be too ambitious and also 

For the complete LA Times article, log here