Tag: Virgin Galactic
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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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SpaceShipTwo goes supersonic in first powered flight since fatal breakup in 2014
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, christened VSS Unity, fires up its hybrid rocket motor for the first time. (Mars Scientific / Trumbull Studios Photo) Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane flew a smooth, supersonic test flight today during its first rocket-powered outing since the first SpaceShipTwo broke up three and a half years ago. The…
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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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SpaceShipTwo’s 2018 test campaign returns to powered flight
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has moved into powered flight testing. The test comes early in the 2018 campaign, as VSS Unity was put through her paces with several unpowered glide tests and landings. Thursday’s powered flight – with a partial duration burn – was the first time since the loss of VSS Enterprise in 2014. Virgin…
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Microsoft Edge boosts SpaceShipTwo into virtual space on Virgin Galactic’s website
Virgin Galactic’s website offers a multimedia-enhanced VR view of VSS Unity, the company’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, and its WhiteKnightTwo mothership. (Microsoft Edge / Virgin Galactic) Virgin Galactic hasn’t yet started taking tourists into space on its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, but the company now offers a virtual SpaceShipTwo tour on its website, with a big assist…
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Virgin Galactic strikes a deal to send Italian scientist on suborbital space trip in 2019
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity glides through a test flight. (Virgin Galactic Photo) News Brief: Virgin Galactic and the Italian Space Agency say they’ve signed a letter of intent to send an Italian payload specialist and scientific experiments on a suborbital space mission in 2019. The deal was announced today during the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference…
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VP Mike Pence visits Virgin Galactic and Stratolaunch space ventures in Mojave
Vice President Mike Pence sits in the cockpit of Stratolaunch’s mammoth airplane in Mojave, Calif. (Stratolaunch Systems Photo) Vice President Mike Pence made Mojave, Calif., the latest stop on his nationwide tour of spaceship development sites today, with visits to Virgin Galactic and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch hangar. Pence was accompanied by his wife,…
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Virgin Orbit sign SITAEL contract for LauncherOne satellite launch
Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne has signed an agreement to launch a SITAEL satellite developed in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The all-electric propulsion microsat demonstrator called µHETsat will be air-launched on a rocket carried under the wing of Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl carrier plane. Virgin Orbit Launch: The…
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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo plane glides through a ‘dry run’ for blastoff
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity glides through a test flight. (Virgin Galactic Photo) Virgin Galactic said its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane today executed a successful gliding flight test that was “essentially a dry run for rocket-powered flights.” “Our major first today though was that with the exception of the rocket motor fuel grain … we flew with…
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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…