{"id":17727,"date":"2020-05-01T19:40:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T11:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-makes-its-first-gliding-test-flight-over-new-mexico\/"},"modified":"2020-05-01T19:40:20","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T11:40:20","slug":"virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-makes-its-first-gliding-test-flight-over-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-makes-its-first-gliding-test-flight-over-new-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Galactic\u2019s SpaceShipTwo makes its first gliding test flight over New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_561562\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-561562\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-561562\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/200501-unity-630x363.jpg\" alt=\"SpaceShipTwo\" width=\"630\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/200501-unity-630x363.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/200501-unity-1260x726.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/200501-unity-768x442.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/200501-unity-1536x885.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/200501-unity-2048x1180.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-561562\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceshipTwo Unity flies free in New Mexico airspace for the first time. (Virgin Galactic Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For the first time, Virgin Galactic\u2019s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane flew free in the skies over New Mexico\u2019s Spaceport America, its new base of operations.<\/p>\n<p>The SpaceShipTwo plane, known as VSS Unity, has made rocket-powered flights beyond the 50-mile space milestone during tests at California\u2019s Mojave Air and Space Port, but today\u2019s unpowered test flight was the first to be flown from Spaceport America.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday\u2019s VSS Unity flight is another exciting milestone for Virgin Galactic\u2019s progress in New Mexico,\u201d Dan Hicks, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, said in a news release. \u201cWe are extremely happy and proud of Virgin Galactic, not only for today\u2019s success but also for the exceptional way they have integrated into NM and supported the region and state during this stressful time dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The flight was conducted under a set of operational protocols aimed at ensuring safety amid the coronavirus pandemic, including social distancing and universal mask usage.<\/p>\n<p>Unity was carried to a height of 50,000 feet by its WhiteKnightTwo mothership, VMS Eve, and then released to glide back to the spaceport\u2019s runway. Virgin Galactic said Unity achieved a glide speed of Mach 0.70 and completed all test objectives with pilots Dave Mackay and CJ Sturckow at the controls. Michael Masucci and Kelly Latimer piloted Eve.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"SpaceShipTwo Unity soars in 1st glide flight over New Mexico\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mA8UbDyvgbc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Further test flights will clear the way for passengers to start flying suborbital space trips as early as this year. More than 600 customers from 60 countries have paid as much as $250,000 for a reservation, and Virgin Galactic resumed taking deposits for trips in February.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceShipTwo is the successor of SpaceShipOne, which captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 with backing from the late Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen.<\/p>\n<p>The air-launch architecture also inspired Allen\u2019s Stratolaunch venture, which a new set of financial backers acquired from Vulcan Inc. last year.<\/p>\n<p>Virgin Galactic\u2019s main competitor in the nascent suborbital space tourism industry is Blue Origin, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos\u2019 privately held space venture. Blue Origin has said it\u2019s aiming to start flying people later this year from its suborbital spaceport in West Texas, within a few hours\u2019 drive of Virgin Galactic\u2019s New Mexico base of operations. But it\u2019s not yet clear how the pandemic will affect that timeline.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Update for 10:50 a.m. PT May 2:<\/strong> This report has been updated with background on SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin\u2019s suborbital space program.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceshipTwo Unity flies free in New Mexico airspace for the first time. (Virgin Galactic Photo) For the first time, Virgin Galactic\u2019s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane flew free in the skies over New Mexico\u2019s Spaceport America, its new base of operations. The SpaceShipTwo plane, known as VSS Unity, has made rocket-powered flights beyond the 50-mile space milestone [&hellip;]<\/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":[1598,1973,492,1600],"class_list":["post-17727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-spaceport-america","tag-spaceshiptwo","tag-virgin-galactic","tag-vss-unity"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727"}],"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=17727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}