Today was a memorable day for Virgin Galactic as the VSS Unity finally lit her rocket motor during a flight above the Mojave Desert in California today. Unity separated from her mothership White Knight II 46,500 feet above the desert before igniting the engine that brought SpaceShipTwo (SS2) to an altitude of 84,271 feet before shutting down as planned. Unity reached a speed of Mach 1.87 during the 30 seconds that her engine was fired—and activated her tail boom (a.k.a. "feather system") before descending back to her landing site at the Mojave Air & Space Port. The tail boom was brought back to its landing configuration 50,000 feet above the ground as Unity began her final glide back to the runway.
Virgin Galactic
With today's momentous flight, the VSS Unity is that much closer to finally ferrying paying passengers to suborbital space from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Boeing and SpaceX will soon make manned commercial spaceflight a reality with the impending launches of the CST-100 Starliner and Crew Dragon, respectively; it's time for Virgin Galactic to do so as well with SS2. This would obviously be the latest way to honor the memory of the VSS Enterprise and Michael Alsbury, the co-pilot who tragically lost his life in the spacecraft's crash on October 31, 2014. Ad astra.
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic
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