Space News by Jeff Foust — September 8, 2017
WASHINGTON — The chief executive of Virgin Galactic said Sept. 7 that the company’s second suborbital spaceplane was “at the edge” of beginning powered test flights, after at least one more glide flight.
George Whitesides, speaking at the 20th Annual International Mars Society Convention in Irvine, California, said that while the company was gearing up for the next phase of flight testing of SpaceShipTwo, it would not give a timetable for beginning commercial flights.
“Galactic is still trucking away and we are getting close to powered flight,” he said. “We’re now right at the edge of powered flight.”
The company has been performing a series of glide flights of its second SpaceShipTwo, named VSS Unity, that started in December 2016. During those flights, SpaceShipTwo is carried aloft by, and then released from, its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, gliding to a runway landing at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
The sixth, and most recent, glide flight of this SpaceShipTwo took place Aug. 4. At the time, the company called the flight “essentially a dry run for rocket-powered flights,” with most of the components of the hybrid rocket motor that will power the vehicle on those later flights included.
Whitesides said that glide flight was not the last one planned for the vehicle, but indicated the glide flight part of the test program was wrapping up. “We have, probably, a very small number of glide flights left before we start powered flight, which will be a great milestone,” he said.
More:
http://spacenews.com/virgin-galactic-nearing-powered-spaceshiptwo-test-flights/
