SpaceX seems to get all the private rocket buzz these days, but Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is also out there, firing off rockets and aiming for the heavens. The company’s SpaceShipTwo space plane just completed its first powered test flight, and the video footage is a sight to behold.
Rather than enter into some NASA contract to shoot supplies into space on a giant rocket with a totally boring unmanned robot spacecraft, Virgin is working toward the goal of taking people into space. Well, neither one is actually boring, and the Virgin flights aren’t exactly going to be in most people’s price range. When the trip is made available to consumers as early as late 2013, the estimated cost is going to be a steep $200,000. Clearly not within reach of the common man.
SpaceShipTwo is a suborbital vehicle that will be flown up above commercial air traffic by a larger plane. In the video this task is accomplished by WhiteKnightTwo, which reached an altitude of 46,000 feet before releasing the smaller rocket-powered space plane. The craft’s engine was then fired for 16 seconds, reaching a maximum speed of Mach 1.2. This pushed SpaceShipTwo up to 56,000 feet before it disengaged and returned to Earth.
The space plane was piloted by Mark Stucky and co-pilot Mike Alsbury, who don’t actually work for Virgin Galactic. Both pilots are with Scaled Composites, the firm which built SpaceShipTwo for Virgin. This test is the third unassisted flight of the ship, but only the first time the engine has been engaged in the air.
When real flights begin, the SpaceShipTwo will use its rocket engine to take travelers to the edge of space, where they will make a full orbit of Earth and get to experience weightlessness. This could best be described as extremely low Earth orbit — substantially below even the orbit of the International Space Station. Although, wealthy folks are probably still going to line up at the airlock once the service goes live.
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