First Feather Flight Of VSS Unity Completed | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-07.21.25

Airborne-Unlimited-07.22.25

AirborneUnlimited-07.23.25

Airborne-Unlimited-07.24.25

AirborneUnlimited-07.25.25

Wed, May 03, 2017

First Feather Flight Of VSS Unity Completed

Flight Testing On New Spacecraft Reaches Milestone

VSS Unity, the sub-orbital spacecraft that Virgin Galactic hopes will one day carry tourists to the fringe of space, reached a major milestone Monday with the successful completion of its first feather flight.

Virgin Galactic posted on its blog that the feather system was tested extensively on the ground before the flight test was conducted.

"Full analysis of the data from today’s flight will, as always, take time; but initial reports from the pilots and from mission control are extremely encouraging," the company said in the post.

VSS Unity was piloted by Mark Stucky and Mike Masucci, with pilots Nicola Pecile and CJ Sturckow as well as flight test engineer Dustin Mosher in WhiteKnightTwo. The test flight was the fourth glide flight (and eight flight overall) of VSS Unity, and the 227th flight of WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve.

"Once data reviews are complete, we will move forward with our testing program—pressing onward with additional glide flights designed to expand our envelope of flight weights and centers of gravity," the company said.

(Images provided by Virgin Galactic and from company YouTube video)

FMI: www.virgingalactic.com

Advertisement

More News

Airborne 07.22.25: MOSAIC Released!, Able Flight, SUN n FUN 26

Also: Airbus Acubed Wayfinder FlightLab, Lightspeed Zulu 4, Pelton On Issues Plaguing GA For the better part of a decade and certainly before the last several years in particular, >[...]

Airborne 07.23.25: VoltAero, Bud Anderson Remembered, WomenVenture, Beta

Also: Wing Delivers, Stralis/Aviate Enterprises, EAA’s Youth Programs, EAA’s Impressive Museum And Aircraft Collection VoltAero’s HPU 210 hybrid propulsion unit i>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (07.26.25): Downburst

Downburst A strong downdraft which induces an outburst of damaging winds on or near the ground. Damaging winds, either straight or curved, are highly divergent. The sizes of downbu>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (07.26.25)

Aero Linx: Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) The Air Charter Safety Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization. Founded in 2008, our mission is to lead and support the advanc>[...]

Airborne 07.24.25: Spirit SE-1!, H55 eFlyer, King Schools

Also: Centauri Aircraft Valkyrie, Meet the Admin, Night Airshow, Pelton Intv'w When we laid eyes on this critter, we fell in love… and then we learned the amazing story of t>[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2025 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC