Tag: Richard Branson
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Virgin Galactic sends its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane to 50-mile space milestone
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipOne rocket plane, dubbed VSS Unity, fires its hybrid rocket motor for a 51-mile-high flight. (MarsScientific.com / Trumbull Studios) MOJAVE, Calif. — Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, dubbed VSS Unity, has become the first privately funded vehicle in 14 years to carry people to the edge of space — depending on how you define…
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Virgin Galactic accomplishes milestone test flight to the edge of space
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT) after confirmation of a successful test flight. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane fires toward space Thursday. Credit: MarsScientific.com & Trumbull Studios / Virgin Galactic With two veteran test pilots at the controls, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane climbed to the edge of space for the first time…
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Virgin Orbit puts flying launch pad through speedy taxi test with a rocket in its pocket
Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl carrier airplane taxis down a runway at Victorville Airport in California with a LauncherOne rocket slung under one of its wings. (Virgin Orbit via Twitter) British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit space venture notched another milestone over the Veterans Day weekend: the first high-speed taxi test of its modified Boeing 747…
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Virgin Galactic signs onto a deal to bring spaceflights to future spaceport in Italy
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, known as VSS Unity, is hooked onto its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane at Mojave Air and Space Port in California. (Virgin Galactic Photo) Virgin Galactic and a pair of Italian companies today signed a framework agreement aimed at bringing Virgin Galactic’s launch system to a future spaceport in the heel of…
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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo completes second powered test flight
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fires its engine during Tuesday’s test flight. Credit: Virgin Galactic Helmed by two test pilots, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane set new altitude and speed records for the company’s test program Tuesday during a powered flight over California’s Mojave Desert. Tuesday’s test flight moved Virgin Galactic closer to eventually flying paying passengers…
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Photos: VSS Unity’s first powered test flight
These images captured by photographer Gene Blevins show Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo space plane making its first rocket-powered test flight Thursday over California’s Mojave Desert, then gliding back to a runway landing. The SpaceShipTwo vehicle, named VSS Unity, dropping from the belly of a carrier jet at 9:01 a.m. PDT (12:01 p.m. EDT; 1601 GMT)…
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Video: SpaceShipTwo rocket plane soars on supersonic test flight
Virgin Galactic’s commercial SpaceShipTwo rocket plane made its highest and fastest flight to date Thursday, moving the company’s space tourism ambitions closer to reality more than three years after a fatal accident suspended powered test flights. This video shows the SpaceShipTwo vehicle, named VSS Unity, dropping from the belly of a carrier jet at 9:01…
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Virgin Galactic completes first rocket-powered test flight since 2014
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle fires its hybrid rocket motor on Thursday. Credit: MarsScientific.com & Trumbull Studios / Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic’s second piloted suborbital spaceship made its first rocket-powered test flight Thursday, three-and-a-half years after the loss of an earlier model in an accident that killed one test pilot and injured another. Designed to ferry…
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Bezos, Musk and more: Space billionaires take the spotlight in books and on TV
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (in hat and sunglasses) pops open a bottle of champagne after Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket landing in November 2015. (Credit: Blue Origin) Space is hard: That used to be the excuse for explaining why sending people into space would always be something only governments could do. Now it explains why…
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Richard Branson says SpaceShipTwo is set to blast off into space by year’s end
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity glides through the skies over California’s Mojave Desert. (Virgin Galactic Photo) Virgin Galactic’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson, has been toning down his predictions about the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane’s future trips to space. Until now. During a trip to Hong Kong to inaugurate a new Virgin Australia route from Melbourne, Branson said…