{"id":17834,"date":"2020-01-08T17:22:43","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T09:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/wow-virgin-galactics-next-spaceshiptwo-rocket-plane-reaches-weight-on-wheels-milestone\/"},"modified":"2020-01-08T17:22:43","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T09:22:43","slug":"wow-virgin-galactics-next-spaceshiptwo-rocket-plane-reaches-weight-on-wheels-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/wow-virgin-galactics-next-spaceshiptwo-rocket-plane-reaches-weight-on-wheels-milestone\/","title":{"rendered":"WOW! Virgin Galactic\u2019s next SpaceShipTwo rocket plane reaches \u2018Weight on Wheels\u2019 milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"VSS Imagine Completes Weight on Wheels\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bY39j7Z63m8?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>The rocket plane that\u2019s due to become Virgin Galactic\u2019s second commercial suborbital spaceship can now stand on its own two feet \u2014 or to be more precise, on its own landing gear.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Virgin Galactic Holdings\u2019 manufacturing subsidiary, known as The SpaceShip Company, reached the \u201cWeight on Wheels\u201d milestone when it assembled all of the SpaceShipTwo craft\u2019s major structural elements, deployed the main landing gear and had the structure bear its own weight for the first time at the company\u2019s factory in Mojave, Calif. That\u2019s a key event in the assembly of a vehicle destined to take its place alongside Virgin Galactic\u2019s VSS Unity rocket plane.<\/li>\n<li>VSS Unity is being prepared for its final flight tests before taking on paying passengers at Spaceport America in New Mexico, presumably later this year. The flight profile calls for VSS Unity \u2014 and eventually the second spaceship as well \u2014 to be air-launched from a WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane to send up to six passengers at a time beyond the 50-mile space milestone. Two piloted flight tests in December 2018 and February 2019&nbsp;have already reached those heights, minting new commercial astronauts in the process.<\/li>\n<li>The next steps for the next SpaceShipTwo include hooking up the vehicle\u2019s integrated systems and completing the final structural closeouts. When construction is complete, the plane will be put through rounds of ground-based tests and flight tests before joining Virgin Galactic\u2019s fleet in New Mexico. Meanwhile, construction of a third SpaceShipTwo is \u201cmaking good progress,\u201d Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said in a news release, with structural and system part fabrication more than halfway complete.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rocket plane that\u2019s due to become Virgin Galactic\u2019s second commercial suborbital spaceship can now stand on its own two feet \u2014 or to be more precise, on its own landing gear. Virgin Galactic Holdings\u2019 manufacturing subsidiary, known as The SpaceShip Company, reached the \u201cWeight on Wheels\u201d milestone when it assembled all of the SpaceShipTwo [&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":[291,493,1973,4888,492],"class_list":["post-17834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-space-tourism","tag-spaceshiptwo","tag-the-spaceship","tag-virgin-galactic"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17834"}],"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=17834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}