{"id":15041,"date":"2016-12-05T21:31:41","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T13:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/virgin-galactics-second-spaceship-aces-first-glide-flight\/"},"modified":"2016-12-05T21:31:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T13:31:41","slug":"virgin-galactics-second-spaceship-aces-first-glide-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/virgin-galactics-second-spaceship-aces-first-glide-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Galactic\u2019s second spaceship aces first glide flight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Virgin
Virgin Galactic\u2019s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, christened VSS Unity, glided to a runway landing after dropping from its carrier aircraft over California\u2019s Mojave Desert on Saturday. Credit: Virgin Galactic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Virgin Galactic\u2019s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane glided to a runway landing after dropping from its carrier aircraft over California\u2019s Mojave Desert on Saturday.<\/p>\n

With two pilots at the controls, the VSS Unity spaceship\u2019s first glide flight went well, returning Virgin Galactic\u2019s SpaceShipTwo vehicles to standalone sorties for the first time since a fatal accident on a test flight in October 2014 set back the company\u2019s plans to start commercial service with passengers on brief suborbital trips into space.<\/p>\n

VSS Unity is Virgin Galactic\u2019s second rocket plane, and the first manufactured by a Virgin subsidiary named The Spaceship Company. Saturday\u2019s test came after a series of flights with the new SpaceShipTwo vehicle remaining attached to its huge carrier plane, dubbed WhiteKnightTwo.<\/p>\n

Veteran test pilots Mark Stucky and Dave Mackay flew VSS Unity from its release from the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane at an altitude of 50,000 feet to a smooth unpowered landing on a runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs expected, for this first gliding test flight, VSS Unity was flying light and slow, achieving a maximum speed of approximately Mach 0.6 while gliding home from an altitude of 50,000 feet,\u201d Virgin Galactic said in a statement. \u201cAn initial look at the data as well as feedback from our two pilots indicate that today\u2019s flight went extremely well, but we\u2019ll take the time to properly and thoroughly analyze the vehicle\u2019s performance before clearing the vehicle for our next test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s glide test was the fifth flight of VSS Unity since it first took to the skies in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to getting back into the skies as soon as the engineers say we are ready to do so,\u201d Virgin Galactic said.<\/p>\n

More glide flights are planned before Virgin Galactic officials give the green light to begin rocket-powered tests on VSS Unity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not yet reached the rocket powered phase of the test flight program \u2014 first we need to gather test flight data to confirm our analyses and calculations about how VSS Unity will perform in a wide variety of real-world flight conditions,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

The glide flights will test the vehicle\u2019s performance at a range of weights, from a light load to a heavy spacecraft simulating a mission with full fuel tanks and passengers. The tests will also wring out VSS Unity\u2019s performance at different airspeeds and flight angles.<\/p>\n

Pilots and engineers will also demonstrate SpaceShipTwo\u2019s abort modes during the glide flights, according to Virgin Galactic, part of Richard Branson\u2019s Virgin Group.<\/p>\n

On full-up suborbital missions, SpaceShipTwo vehicles will drop from the bottom of its mothership at 50,000 feet, fire an aft-mounted hybrid rocket motor and accelerate past the speed of sound, heading for a peak altitude of more than 60 miles (100 kilometers), the internationally-recognized boundary of space.<\/p>\n

Passengers aboard the rocket plane will experience several minutes of microgravity, and enjoy expansive views of Earth below the blackness of space.<\/p>\n

During the next phase of the flight, the spaceship will re-orient its twin tail booms to stabilize itself for re-entry, then glide to a runway landing like the space shuttle.<\/p>\n

Virgin Galactic officials have set requirements VSS Unity needs to meet during the craft\u2019s glide flight test program before proceeding to rocket-powered tests. The company said it will conduct as many flights as needed to meet the requirements.<\/p>\n

The first SpaceShipTwo test vehicle, named VSS Enterprise, was on its fourth powered test flight when it broke apart shortly after igniting its rocket motor in October 2014. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident \u2014 lead pilot Peter Siebold survived \u2014 10 miles over the Mojave Desert.<\/p>\n

National Transportation Safety Board investigators blamed the crash on Alsbury\u2019s premature unlocking of the craft\u2019s rotating tail booms.<\/p>\n

The pilots did not send commands to deploy the re-entry feathering system, but strong aerodynamic forces in the lower, denser part of the atmosphere pushed the unlocked tail booms upward into their re-entry positions, leading to loss of control and the disintegration of the rocket plane.<\/p>\n

VSS Unity has an electronic mechanism to prevent pilots from prematurely unlocking the feathering system.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virgin Galactic\u2019s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, christened VSS Unity, glided to a runway landing after dropping from its carrier aircraft over California\u2019s Mojave Desert on Saturday. Credit: Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic\u2019s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane glided to a runway landing after dropping from its carrier aircraft over California\u2019s Mojave Desert on Saturday. With two pilots […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[291,2900,493,1973,2652,492,1600,3516],"class_list":["post-15041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-mojave","tag-space-tourism","tag-spaceshiptwo","tag-the-spaceship-company","tag-virgin-galactic","tag-vss-unity","tag-whiteknighttwo"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15041"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}