Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity last week completed
its seventh flight over the Mojave Desert, the first since last summer. The
flight was designed to validate work completed during recent months of
downtime, including transonic flight performance, stability and control to
ensure the vehicle is ready for the higher loads and forces of powered test
flight.
After release from mothership VMS Eve at
approximately 50,000 feet, pilots Mark "Forger" Stucky and Michael
"Sooch" Masucci pushed Unity into a steep dive that brought the
aircraft to approximately Mach 0.9, or about as fast as the machine can fly
without igniting the rocket motor.
Water ballast
used in these tests to replicate near normal flying weights was jettisoned at
22,000 feet to allow for a lighter weight landing. The VSS Unity flight also
operated with the aircraft’s silver-film thermal protection system applied to
ensure the heat loads created by air friction during rocket-powered boost and
supersonic re-entry cause no damage to the vehicle.
The company says
the passenger line to fly aboard a Virgin
Galactic space tourism aircraft is already 700 people deep, despite the
$275,000 per ticket price tag. No precise date yet for a first flight.
(Evangle Luo of TTFLY shared with you)
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