Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Photos of the Day: SpaceShipThree Is Unveiled While Starship SN11 Commits a RUD...

VSS Imagine, the first in a new line of suborbital spacecraft known as SpaceShipThree, is unveiled by Virgin Galactic on March 30, 2021.
Virgin Galactic

Earlier today, Virgin Galactic unveiled the first vehicle in its newest line of spacecraft...known as SpaceShipThree. This chrome-plated craft, christened the VSS Imagine, will begin embarking on test flights later this year—while VSS Unity (the only iteration of SpaceShipTwo) is scheduled to attempt a rocket-powered suborbital flight from New Mexico two months from now.

VSS Imagine, the first in a new line of suborbital spacecraft known as SpaceShipThree, is unveiled by Virgin Galactic on March 30, 2021.
Virgin Galactic

Meanwhile, at the SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica Beach over 780 miles away, Starship Serial No. 11 committed a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (a.k.a. it exploded) upon landing...after conducting a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) hop above the fog-colored Texas coastline earlier this morning. Next up is SN15 (which will debut an upgraded structural assembly, avionics, flight software and Raptor engines)—while SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted that the Super Heavy Booster No. 1 pathfinder will be scrapped over a week after being stacked, as BN2 will incorporate an updated design. Stay tuned.

Starship SN11's Raptor engines continue to fire prior to the prototype rocket exploding upon touchdown at its pad in Boca Chica Beach, Texas...on March 30, 2021.
SpaceX
Posted by Richard Par at 5:59 PM
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