Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceplane has completed a new manned suborbital flight, the first successful in two years, from the new launch site.
During the flight, the spaceplane reached an altitude of 89.2 kilometers.
Virgin Galactic wants to organize tourist suborbital flights using a manned rocket plane, which detaches from the carrier aircraft at an altitude of 15 kilometers.
Then the plane starts its engines and rises above an altitude of 81 kilometers, which the US Air Force considers the conditional boundary of space and the Earth's atmosphere.
The generally accepted boundary space, adopted by the International Aeronautical Federation, is located at an altitude of 100 kilometers.
Currently, all test flights are performed by the VSS Unity ship, which was created to replace the company's first rocket plane, which crashed in 2014.
VSS Unity has completed several test flights since its first flight in 2016, and in February 2019 flew for the first time with a passenger on board.
However, then there was a long break in flights associated with the pandemic, and the next flight, which took place on December 12, 2020, ended in failure due to the premature start of the engine
Nevertheless, the pilots managed to return safely to Earth.
On May 22, VSS Unity completed the third successful manned flight and the first from the spaceport in New Mexico,previously flights took place in Mojave.
The spaceplane separated from the WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, then it started its engine, which worked for a minute reaching a maximum altitude of 89.2 kilometers. Then it returned to the runway.
There were no technical problems during the flight.
This flight was the first in a series of four suborbital flights that the spaceplane is expected to complete in the next few months.
During the second flight, VSS Unity will have four employees in addition to the two pilots, and the third flight will include the founder of the company, Richard Branson.
Source:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/virgingalactic/status/1396187353262092288
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