Thursday, December 13, 2018

Virgin Galactic Planning Fourth Set Of Powered Spaceship Tests Today

Mojave-based Virgin Galactic, which is designing spacecraft designed to carry passengers to space for space tourism, said this morning that it will be running the fourth powered test flight of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle today, Thursday. The company said this test will burn the rocket motor attached to the vehicle longer than it has in flight before, but not to its full duration. Virgin Galactic's spacecraft--which is carried high into the atmosphere first by a "mother ship", the WhiteKnightTwo--uses those rocket motors to propel the spacecraft into space, before gliding back to earth using a "feathering" system.