Virgin Galactic’s six-passenger spaceliner can now deploy its landing gear and carry its full weight on its wheels for the first time. Additionally, all of the major structural elements of SpaceShipTwo have now been assembled.
Virgin Galactic made the announcement on Wednesday with the statement: “With the spaceship now capable of bearing its own weight, the assembly team is hard at work connecting the vehicle’s integrated systems, including the flight control systems from fuselage to tail booms, as well as completing the final structural closeouts.
These spaceships are destined to provide thousands of private astronauts with a truly transformative experience by performing regular trips to space
Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides
“As this work is completed, the spaceship will be positioned in the hangar for the start of integrated vehicle ground testing, which will verify the integrity of all systems.
“This step is a precursor to the start of its flight test program.”
Virgin Galactic already has its VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo vehicle in the latter stages of flight testing.
VSS Unity has so far completed two piloted demonstration missions to suborbital space and back.
Unity is currently in the pioneering commercial space company’s Mojave base for a fine-tune.
The spaceliner will then be taken to New Mexico’s Spaceport America, the base for Virgin Galactic’s commercial operations.
Unity remains on schedule to complete its test campaign at Spaceport America before it begins flying paying tourists this year.
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Those customers will pay £191,000 ($250,000) for the privilege of experience minutes of weightlessness and to see the curvature of Earth against the inky blackness of space.
Virgin Galactic recently revealed how more than 600 people have reportedly placed a deposit to reserve a seat.
British billionaire Richard Branson’s company has a hangar is big enough to house five SpaceShipTwo vehicles and two WhiteKnightTwo carrier planes simultaneously.
WhiteKnightTwo is a custom-built, four-engine, dual-fuselage jet aircraft, designed to carry SpaceShipTwo up to an altitude of 50,000ft (15,000m).
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At this point, SpaceShipTwo separates and fires up its onboard rocket motor, making its own way to suborbital space.
A third SpaceShipTwo is also under construction at Mojave, which Virgin Galactic said is approximately 50 percent complete.
George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic said in yesterday’s statement: “We now have two spaceships that are structurally complete, with our third making good progress.
“These spaceships are
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