Thursday, December 16, 2010

Virgin Galactic Aims At Orbital Flights

Not satisfied with the firm's plans to provide suborbital space tourism flights, Mojave-based Virgin Galactic said Thursday that it is now supporting work by Sierra Nevada Space Systems and Orbital Sciences, on commercial space vehicles to support orbital flights. Virgin Galactic said it is hoping to allow fare-paying passengers to experience safe, orbital space flight. Sierra Nevada Space Systems and Orbital Sciences are both working on reusable vehicles aimed at providing privately-operated, crew vehicles to deliver astronauts to orbit for NASA, via NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program (CCDEV2). Virgin Galactic said it is proposing to market seats on those vehicles to the public, as well as the its existing customers, who have already put down deposits to take trips on Virgin Galactic's suborbital vehicles to space. Financial details of the support for the firms was not details.

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