Posted: Tue, Dec 8, 2009, 10:40 AM ET (1540 GMT)
Space tourism company Virgin Galactic formally unveiled its suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, at an event Monday in California. The first SpaceShipTwo, christened VSS Enterprise, was rolled out attached to its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft during a ceremony at Mojave Airport north of Los Angeles. The spacecraft, capable of carrying six passengers and two pilots to an altitude of over 100 kilometers, is scheduled to begin test flights in the near future and enter commercial service no sooner than early 2011. About 800 invited guests and press attended the event, including the governors of California and New Mexico. The post-rollout celebration ended early when high winds forced organizers to evacuate guests from tents erected for the event on one of the airport's runways.

Related Links:

•  SPACE.com article
•  MSNBC article
•  CBS News/Spaceflight Now article
•  AP article
•  Virgin Galactic press release