SpaceShipOne was designed for a crew of three. The ship was dubbed the "VMS Eve," and featured an extra-wide wingspan with dual fuselages and pilot cabins on opposite sides of the vessel's SpaceShipTwo ferry. Virgin Galactic plane developmentĮven without the spacecraft ready, WhiteKnightTwo, the redesigned carrier aircraft for SpaceShipTwo was unveiled and began test flights in December 2008. This halted spacecraft production to allow for an investigation, which ultimately found the company at fault. From there, Virgin Galactic launches its SpaceShipTwo missions, but they have been few and seldomly as the company and spacecraft struggled with development issues and unfortunately, fatal accidents that delayed SpaceShipTwo's debut for a number of years.Ī 2007 explosion at the Mojave Air and Space Port, in California, during a SpaceShipTwo propellant flow test, killed three Scaled Composites' workers and injured three others. In December 2005, Virgin Galactic struck a deal with the state of New Mexico to build a $225 million taxpayer-funded launch center known as Spaceport America, which serves as the company's headquarters. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic via Twitter) 13, 2018, after a rocket-powered test flight that achieved a maximum altitude of 51.4 miles (82.7 kilometers). Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity suborbital spaceliner touches down at Mojave Air and Space Port on Dec. So far, everyone who's flown with Virgin Galactic has received their astronaut wings, though a few are accompanied by an asterisk*. The space agency developed the X-15 hypersonic plane in the 1950s, which was carried into the sky strapped to the wing of a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress aircraft, and then dropped for engine ignition at altitude, using the same principles Scaled Composites' SpaceShip design would use over a half-century later.Įight of the twelve X-15 pilots earned astronaut wings, with some flights taking the aircraft up to 67 miles (108 kilometers) in altitude. It's high enough to see the curvature of the earth, and the utter blackness of space, and the length of the flights allows passengers several minutes to experience weightlessness.Ī similar launch technique was implemented by NASA during America's first ventures to bridge the gaps of flight between Earth's atmosphere and outer space. However, each of SpaceShipTwo's suborbital flights to date has only crossed the 50-mile mark.
SpaceShipOne's three flights each broke the Kármán line and left no question over the spacecraft's success. And thus, with a 12-mile difference between them, the debate over who has or hasn't been to space, and therefore who does or does not qualify as an "astronaut," persists. The rest of the world recognizes the Kármán line, as its known, as the border with space, which sits at 62 miles (100 kilometers) high. However, the international space community maintains different standards. Space and Air Forces recognize the line between outer space and planet Earth to be at an altitude of 50 miles (80 kilometers). 4, 2017, test flight in the skies above Mojave, California. Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, glides to a landing during an Aug. Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spaceplane shares some similarities with Scaled Composites' SpaceShip line, such as its winged design and aerodynamic flight return, but the technique used by SpaceShipOne and Virgin's subsequent spaceplane models to reach space is unique amongst its contemporary rivals, though not entirely novel. Talk of spaceflight and vehicle reusability these days normally conjures images of capsules parachuting through the clouds, or SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters rocketing back to Earth to land and launch again.
After nearly twenty years and a waitlist of more than 700 people, the company finally appears on a trajectory to cross a few eager would-be astronauts' names off the list - and "astronauts," in this case, is a bit of a contentious term, for some. Now, that ticket price sits at $450k, and as of May 2023, Virgin Galactic has yet to fly any customers, though that may not remain the case much longer.
In 2004, Virgin Galactic began advertising flights to space beginning at $200k, per seat, on an updated version of SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo, to be manufactured by Scaled Composites for commercial use.
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