Virgin Galactic announced a sixth successful glide test of its VSS Unity, the company's second version of SpaceShipTwo. The spaceplane will ultimately attempt suborbital rocket-powered flights with customers who will get to fly up into space. This test marks the first time Galactic filled the VSS Unity's Main Oxidizer Tank with nitrous oxide.
With companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin dominating spaceflight headlines, Virgin Galactic has been working toward similar goals with a different approach. Founded in 2010 with a goal of taking people into space and then back to Earth, the company was marred by a tragic crash in 2014. It took two years for Virgin Galactic earn approval from the FAA again to flight test the SpaceShipTwo.
"Our major first today though was that with the exception of the rocket motor fuel grain, called the CTN (Case-Throat-Nozzle), we flew with all the spaceship's principle propulsion components on-board and live," the company said in a blog post describing the test, which took place in California's Mojave Desert on August 4. In a repeat of other tests, the VSS Unity carried a ballast tank in the rear fuselage filled with a thousand pounds of water to simulate the weight and positioning of the CTN.
Unlike other space companies that plan to use traditional rocket launches, the VSS Unity will be launched from a carrier plane called the VMS Eve. The VMS Eve will carry VSS Unity to 50,000 feet, at which point it will drop the spaceplane. "Within seconds," Virgin Galactic promises, "the rocket motor will be engaged" and Unity will fly approximately three and a half times the speed of sound, rocketing up into suborbital space.
"We are really pleased with what we saw today," said Virgin chief pilot David Mackay. "We collected hundreds of gigabytes of data for us to review, and from the pilots' point of view, it felt really wonderful. All of you here at Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company should be very proud: VSS Unity is a great spaceship!"
Source: Virgin Galactic
David Grossman is a staff writer for PopularMechanics.com. He's previously written for The Verge, Rolling Stone, The New Republic and several other publications. He's based out of Brooklyn.
