Captured Carry Flight Marks The Start Of The Flight Test Program For The New Spacecraft

Thursday marked an exciting milestone for Virgin Galactic. For the first time, a spaceship built by The Spaceship Company and operated by its parent company Virgin Galactic has taken to the skies.

One unique aspect of our human spaceflight program is that, unlike NASA’s Space Shuttle, Russia’s Soyuz, or other past systems, SpaceShipTwo doesn’t launch from a pad on the ground, but rather from under the wing of a carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo (the company's LauncherOne small satellite launch service uses a similar technique, launching from the wing of a 747). Thursday's flight test was what is called a ‘captive carry’ flight, during which VSS Unity remained mated to the WhiteKnightTwo mothership (VMS Eve) for the entire flight from takeoff to landing.

In this configuration, WhiteKnightTwo serves as a veritable ‘flying wind tunnel,’ allowing the highest fidelity method of testing airflow around SpaceShipTwo while simultaneously testing how the spaceship performs when exposed to the frigid temperatures found at today’s maximum altitude of ~50,000 feet and above.

VSS Unity was piloted by Mark Stucky and Dave Mackay, while VMS Eve was flown by Mike Masucci and Todd Ericson along with flight test engineer Wes Persall. The flight lasted 3 hours and 43 minutes.

With this flight in the books, Virgin Galactic ways it will begin to analyze a mountain of flight data, learning what worked well and what could be improved for the next flight test. Only when that analysis is done, along with detailed vehicle inspections, some already-planned work, and potentially more captive carry flights, will the program move forward.

The company said in a blog post that an incredible amount of research, discovery, and iteration has already gone into this program ... starting with SpaceShipOne’s initial proof of concept and progressing through the flight test of VSS Enterprise, testing of the raw materials that were used to build our new spaceship, component testing, and most recently the Integrated Ground Vehicle Testing of VSS Unity. The data resulting from today’s flight test will be added to that prior work, helping us make our next flight tests even more efficient, effective, and safe.

(Images provided with Virgin Galactic news release)

FMI: www.virgingalactic.com