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SpaceShipTwo
The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) was an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It was manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo was carried to its launch altitude by a Scaled Composites White Knight Two, before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere powered by its rocket engine. It then glided back to Earth and performed a conventional runway landing. The spaceship was officially unveiled to the public on 7 December 2009 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. On 29 April 2013, after nearly three years of unpowered testing, the first SS2 constructed successfully performed its first powered test flight. Virgin Galactic planned to operate a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes in a private passenger-carrying service and took bookings for some time, with a suborbital flight carrying a ticket price of US$250,000 in 2015. The spaceplane was also u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate, which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company develops commercial spacecraft and provides suborbital spaceflights to Space tourism, space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic's maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity, VSS ''Unity'' spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010, but the date was delayed, primarily due to the VSS Enterprise crash, October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise, VSS ''Enterprise''. The company did the early work on the satellite launch development of LauncherOne before this was hive-off, hived off to a separate company, Virgin Orbit, in 2017. The company also has aspirations for subor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VSS Enterprise
VSS ''Enterprise'' ( tail number: N339SS) was the first SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spaceplane, built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. As of 2004, it was planned to be the first of five commercial suborbital SS2 spacecraft planned by Virgin Galactic. It was also the first ship of the Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo class, based on upscaling the design of record-breaking SpaceShipOne. The VSS ''Enterprise''s name was an acknowledgement of the USS ''Enterprise'' from the ''Star Trek'' television series. The spaceplane also shared its name with NASA's prototype Space Shuttle orbiter, as well as the aircraft carrier USS ''Enterprise''. It was rolled out on 7 December 2009. SpaceShipTwo made its first powered flight in April 2013. Richard Branson said it "couldn't have gone more smoothly". ''Enterprise'' was destroyed during a powered test flight on 31 October 2014, killing one pilot, Michael Alsbury, and seriously injuring another, Peter Siebold. This was the fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VSS Unity
VSS ''Unity'' (Virgin Space Ship ''Unity'', registration: N202VG), previously referred to as VSS ''Voyager'', is a retired SpaceShipTwo-class suborbital rocket-powered crewed spaceplane. It was the second ''SpaceShipTwo'' to be built and was part of the Virgin Galactic fleet. It first reached space as defined by the United States (above 50 miles or 80.5 km) on 13 December 2018, on the VP-03 mission. ''Unity'' was able to reach space as defined by the U.S. Air Force, NASA, and the FAA, by going over 50 miles (80.5 km) above sea level. However, it was unable to go above the Kármán line, the FAI's defined space boundary of 100 km (62.1 miles). VSS ''Unity'' was rolled out on 19 February 2016 and completed ground-based system integration testing in September 2016, prior to its first flight on 8 September 2016. ''Unity'' was retired on 8 June 2024 after its final flight took place on that date, as Virgin Galactic shifted its focus to the next generation Delta-class vehic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VSS Enterprise Crash
The VSS ''Enterprise'' crash occurred on October 31, 2014, when the VSS ''Enterprise'', a SpaceShipTwo experimental spaceflight test vehicle operated by Virgin Galactic, suffered a catastrophic in-flight breakup during a test flight and crashed in the Mojave Desert near Cantil, California. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed and pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured. The National Transportation Safety Board later concluded that the breakup was caused by Alsbury's premature unlocking of the air brake device used for atmospheric re-entry. The NTSB said other important factors in the accident were inadequate design safeguards, poor pilot training and lack of rigorous oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Accident On the day of the accident, ''Enterprise'' was performing a test flight – powered flight 4 (PF04) – in which it was dropped from the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, VMS ''Eve'', after taking off from the Mojave Air and Space Port.Moja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RocketMotorTwo
RocketMotorTwo (RM2) is a family of hybrid rocket engines developed for the Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane. The first-generation engine was developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC),Leonard David"Virgin Galactic Pushes Private Spaceship Envelope in Test Flights" Space.com. 10 June 2011. Retrieved 19 May 2013. from the late 2000s to May 2014. It was first ignited in flight during a SpaceShipTwo test launch in April 2013. This engine design was subsequently flown in only two additional flight tests during 2013 and January 2014. SNC was a subcontractor to Scaled Composites through May 2014 when their involvement in the program ended after Virgin Galactic elected to replace SNC's version of RocketMotorTwo powered by HTPB rubber fuel, with its own internally developed hybrid motor for SpaceShipTwo. The second-generation RocketMotorTwo engine is a variant of the earlier SNC basic design. It experimented with using a polyamide plastic fuel and nitrous ox ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scaled Composites White Knight Two
The Scaled Composites Model 348 White Knight Two (WK2) is a quadjet cargo aircraft that was used to lift the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spacecraft to release altitude. It was developed by Scaled Composites from 2007 to 2010 as the first stage of Tier 1b, a two-stage to suborbital-space crewed launch system. WK2 is based on the successful mothership to SpaceShipOne, White Knight, which itself was based on Proteus. With an "open architecture" design and explicit plans for multi-purpose use, the aircraft could also operate as a zero-g aircraft for passenger training or microgravity science flights, handle missions in high-altitude testing more generally, or be used to launch payloads other than SpaceShipTwo. A study of use of the aircraft as a forest fire water bomber has also been mentioned, one that would utilize a large carbon composite water tank that could be quickly replenished to make repeat runs over fires. The first White Knight Two is named VMS ''Eve'' after Richard Branson' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Spaceship Company
The Spaceship Company (TSC) is a British/American spacecraft manufacturing company that was founded by Burt Rutan and Richard Branson in mid-2005 and was jointly owned by Virgin Group (70%) and Scaled Composites (30%) until 2012 when Virgin Galactic became the sole owner. TSC was formed to own the technology created by Scaled for Virgin Galactic's Virgin SpaceShip program. This includes developments on the care-free reentry system and cantilevered-hybrid rocket motor, licensed from Paul Allen and Burt Rutan's Mojave Aerospace. The company is manufacturing Virgin Galactic's spacecraft and has plans to sell spacecraft to other buyers. The suborbital launch system offered included the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spacecraft and the White Knight Two (WK2) carrier aircraft. History 2005-2010 The company was founded in 2005 by Burt Rutan and Richard Branson, and was initially jointly owned by Virgin Group and Scaled Composites, to own the technology created by Scaled for Virgin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VSS Unity VP-03
VP-03 (also referred to in some sources as PF04) was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS ''Unity'' which took place on 13 December 2018, piloted by Mark P. Stucky and co-piloted by Frederick W. "CJ" Sturckow. VSS ''Unity'' was carried aloft by the White Knight Two carrier plane before being released. The spacecraft reached an apogee of ; the flight satisfied the United States definition of spaceflight () but fell short of the Kármán line (), the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale definition. The flight was operated by Virgin Galactic, a private company led by Richard Branson who conducted a space tourism flight on 11 July 2021. It was the first crewed spaceflight from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle mission STS-135 in 2011. Crew Flights are currently only by U.S Convention. Background During the 20th century, human spaceflight was conducted exclusively by countries and government agencies, such as NASA. This began to change during the ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mojave Air And Space Port
The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of . It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the Federal Aviation Administration on June 17, 2004. The facility covers 2,998 acres (1,213 ha) and has three runways. History In 1935, Kern County opened the Mojave Airport east of Mojave, California to serve the gold and silver mining industry in the area. The airport had two dirt runways, one oiled, but no fueling or servicing facilities. In 1941, the Civil Aeronautics Board began improvements to the airport for national defense purposes that included two asphalt runways and a taxiway. Kern County agreed the airport could be taken over by the military in the event of war. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States Marine Corps took over the airport and expanded it into Marine Corps A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic 01
Galactic 01, previously referred to as Unity 23, was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS ''Unity'' which launched on 29 June 2023. The launch was the first commercial spaceflight for Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate, which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and opera .... A research mission for the Italian Air Force, the crew consisted of pilots Michael Masucci and Nicola Pecile as well as crew members Colin Bennett, Walter Villadei, Angelo Landolfi, and Pantaleone Carlucci ( National Research Council of Italy – CNR). The flight was postponed from its original planned October 2021 flight date for Virgin Galactic to upgrade its SpaceShipTwo vehicles. During the flight, Villadei wore a suit to measure biometric data and his physiological responses to spaceflight. Landolfi carried ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scaled Composites
Scaled Composites (often called simply Scaled) is an American aerospace company founded by Burt Rutan and currently owned by Northrop Grumman. It is located at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, California, United States. Founded to develop experimental aircraft, the company now focuses on designing and developing concept craft and prototype fabrication processes for aircraft and other vehicles. It is known for unconventional designs, for its use of non-metal, composite materials, and for winning the Ansari X Prize with its experimental spacecraft SpaceShipOne. Company history Scaled Composites was established in 1982 and purchased by the Beech Aircraft Corporation in 1985, as a result of the collaboration on the Starship project. In 1988, Beech's parent company, Raytheon, sold Scaled back to Rutan, who then sold it to Wyman-Gordon. After Wyman-Gordon was acquired by Precision Castparts Corp., Rutan and ten investors re-acquired the company as Scaled Composites, LLC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sub-orbital Spaceflight
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the primary (astronomy), gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will not become an artificial satellite nor will it reach escape velocity. For example, the path of an object launched from Earth that reaches the Kármán line (about – above sea level), and then falls back to Earth, is considered a sub-orbital spaceflight. Some sub-orbital flights have been undertaken to test spacecraft and launch vehicles later intended for orbital spaceflight. Other vehicles are specifically designed only for sub-orbital flight; examples include crewed vehicles, such as the North American X-15, X-15 and SpaceShipTwo, and uncrewed ones, such as intercontinental ballistic missile, ICBMs and sounding rockets. Flights which attain sufficient velocity to go into low Earth orbit, and then de-orbit before com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
