Virgin Galactic to attempt space flight this week

[Peter1469]

Virgin Galactic to attempt space flight this week

Or at least fly really high. Apparently there are different definitions of where space starts.

Virgin Galactic plans to perform the next test flight of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane as soon as Dec. 13, a flight that could be the first by the vehicle to reach at least one definition of space.

In a Dec. 11 statement, the company said the next powered test flight of VSS Unity, the second SpaceShipTwo, is planned for a window that opens Dec. 13 from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The flight would be the fourth powered flight for this vehicle and the first since July. The statement came shortly after the publication of airspace restrictions in the vicinity of the airport “for rocket launch and recovery” for Dec. 13 through 15.


“At a basic level, this flight will aim to fly higher and faster,” the company said in its statement. “We plan to burn the rocket motor for longer than we ever have in flight before, but not to its full duration.”


The flight will collect “new and important data points” about the vehicle at higher altitudes and speeds, including supersonic handling qualities and thermal dynamics. How well the vehicle is doing will determine how long they burn the rocket motor, the company stated. On the previous flight, SpaceShipTwo’s hybrid rocket motor burned for 42 seconds, while a full-duration burn would run about one minute.


On that previous flight, SpaceShipTwo reached a peak altitude of 52 kilometers, and the company suggested the vehicle could go much higher on the upcoming flight. “At the end stages of the rocket burn in the thin air of the mesosphere and with the speeds that we expect to achieve, additional altitude is added rapidly,” it stated.


That could be enough for the vehicle to fly high enough to reach space, depending on the definition used. “We also plan to burn the rocket motor for durations which will see our pilots and spaceship reach a space altitude for the first time,” Virgin Galactic stated, but noted that, depending on the outcome of this flight, “it may take us a little longer to get to that milestone.”


The statement didn’t specify what it meant by “space altitude,” but company officials have previously said they were using the altitude of 50 miles, or approximately 80 kilometers, used by NASA and the U.S. Air Force for awarding astronaut wings.

[Peter1469]

Update- they did it.

Virgin Galactic launched a spacecraft more than 50 miles high Thursday morning, meeting the Federal Aviation Administration’s definition of space and capturing a long-elusive goal for the company founded by Richard Branson that one day wants to fly tourists high through the atmosphere.

Though it did not reach orbit, the flight was the first launch of a spacecraft from United States soil with humans on board to reach the edge of space since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011. And it gave Virgin Galactic an edge in the race for human spaceflight, as a number of companies, including SpaceX, Blue Origin and Boeing, work to develop spacecraft capable of flying humans.


With two seasoned pilots in the $#@!pit — Mark “Forger” Stucky and C.J. Sturckow — the vehicle known as SpaceShipTwo was ferried to an altitude of about 43,000 feet by a mothership. Like a bomb, the spacecraft was released into a freefall before the pilot ignited the engine, propelling the spaceplane faster than the speed of sound.


Soon, the vehicle pointed almost straight up, as it streaked through the same skies over the California desert where Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in 1947. The spacecraft reached a height of 51.4 miles, hitting a top speed of Mach 2.9, before descending and landing at the company’s space port in Mojave.