At the Mojave
Air & Spaceport on December 7th,
2009, Virgin
Galactic's first SpaceShipTwo
rolled out from the Scaled
Composites facility where it was designed
and built. The vehicle was christened Enterprise
and a big party ensued, though shortened
by severe winter cold and high winds.
The SS2 rocketplane will carry six passengers
and two pilots to over 110 kilometers and
do it routinely with multiple flights per
week. A flight begins with the WhiteKnightTwo
aircraft carrying an SS2 to about 50,000
feet and releaseing it. The SS2 fires its
hybrid rocket engine and takes off nearly
straight up. The engine stops firing after
about 3 minutes and the SS2 coasts on a
ballistic trajectory up to the maximum altitude,
providing about 5 minutes of weightlessness
and a spectacular view of the earth and
the stars. A unique feature of the SS2 is
the way the wing rises up such that on reentry
into the atmosphere the vehicle has a V-shape
that leads to a natural tendency (similar
to a Badmitten shuttlecock) to stay in the
right orientation without pilot control.
Once the vehicle has entered the atmosphere
and slowed down sufficiently, the wing returns
to its normal position and the pilots control
the glide back to the spaceport runway See
the Virgin
Galactic website for more information
about
these vehicles and about the project's
emphasis
on safety.
The SS2 will be tested for up to two years
at Mojave and then commercial flights will
begin at Spaceport
America, which is currently under construction
in New Mexico. A production line to produce
multiple SS2s and WK2s has been created
by Scaled. The goal is to fly many thousands
of people to space at spaceports around
the world over the next decade.
Find lots of links to articles, blog postings,
photos and videos about the unveiling of
SpaceShipTwo in the SpaceShipTwo
Rollout resources page. See also the
Space
Tourism section, which has lots of information
about personal spaceflight in general.
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