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New Powered Flight “Upcoming” for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo
Virgin CEO Whitesides Vague on Timeline
SPACEPORT AMERICA, N.M. — After a hiatus of more than three and a half months that has raised questions by some industry observers, Virgin Galactic is making preparations for a second powered test flight of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, the company’s CEO said Friday.
Speaking at the DC-X First Flight 20th Anniversary and Aerospace Workshop last Friday at Spaceport America in New Mexico, Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides indicated that a powered test flight for SpaceShipTwo was upcoming. “We’re gearing up for our second powered flight,” he said, but offered no specifics on the date.
SpaceShipTwo made its only powered flight to date on April 29, firing its hybrid rocket motor for 16 seconds. The vehicle “performed as expected,” the company said at the time, something Whitesides reiterated on Friday. “The first one went very well. We didn’t have any weird ‘flutter’ or anything through supersonic.”
The lack of powered flights since that April test though -— SpaceShipTwo has made two glide flights, on July 25 and August 8, according to the vehicle’s public test logs —- has generated speculation regarding the long delay. Much of that speculation has focused on the hybrid engine, which has performed two static firings since the April flight, one that Scaled Composites said had flaws “intentionally” introduced into it to test safety systems.
Read the full article by Jeff Foust on the NewSpace Journal web site.
Sir Richard Branson and pilot Mark Stucky congratulate each other after the success of Virgin Galactic’s first rocket-powered flight. To left is Stucky’s wife, to right Virgin CEO George Whitesides. – Virgin Galactic/Mark Greenberg — /// CLICK TO ENLARGE
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Source: http://moonandback.com/2013/08/19/new-powered-flight-upcoming-for-virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo/
