Spectators at the Mojave Air and Space Port report that SpaceShipTwo was still companion to WhiteKnightTwo when it grounded today, which means there was no slide flight today.
No official statement from Virgin Galactic or Scaled compound on a first flight yet, but there’s been a lot of movement at Scaled Composites recently. If SpaceShipTwo hasn’t previously made its first glide flight, we anticipate it to happen soon.
WhiteKnightTwo, the care for ship that will carry SpaceShipTwo to elevation for its first flight, has made numerous flights over the past month. Three of the four most recent flights were flown by test pilot Peter Siebold and portray as practices for SpaceShipTwo glide flight missions with “SS2 move toward simulations.”
A fourth flight was flown by test pilot Mark Stucky with the same report. So it is clear that the flight test group has been preparing for the first glide flight. SpaceShipTwo made its first confined flight back in March and a second captive flight was made in May. Siebold is the Director of Flight Testing at level and spoke with us last year at Oshkosh regarding flying Eve, the mother ship that holds the new spacecraft.
Like its mother ship ancestor, White Knight, the cockpit of Eve has the same fundamental cockpit pattern as the spacecraft. Eve can be configured to fly like SpaceShipTwo through the advance segment of the flight profile to replicate the slither path to the runway before the first flight of the spacecraft. Think of it as a simulator that flies.
SpaceShipOne made some glide flights where the spacecraft is accepted to altitude and released. The assessment pilots use the flights to review flight characteristics and the relatively steep approach path to the runway before the first motorized flights are made.
Yet, during powered flights into space, SpaceShipTwo will go back to earth as a glider after reentering the atmosphere. The Virgin Galactic program has been postponed somewhat recently and the company says passenger flights would not occur until later in 2011 at the earliest.
No official statement from Virgin Galactic or Scaled compound on a first flight yet, but there’s been a lot of movement at Scaled Composites recently. If SpaceShipTwo hasn’t previously made its first glide flight, we anticipate it to happen soon.
WhiteKnightTwo, the care for ship that will carry SpaceShipTwo to elevation for its first flight, has made numerous flights over the past month. Three of the four most recent flights were flown by test pilot Peter Siebold and portray as practices for SpaceShipTwo glide flight missions with “SS2 move toward simulations.”
A fourth flight was flown by test pilot Mark Stucky with the same report. So it is clear that the flight test group has been preparing for the first glide flight. SpaceShipTwo made its first confined flight back in March and a second captive flight was made in May. Siebold is the Director of Flight Testing at level and spoke with us last year at Oshkosh regarding flying Eve, the mother ship that holds the new spacecraft.
Like its mother ship ancestor, White Knight, the cockpit of Eve has the same fundamental cockpit pattern as the spacecraft. Eve can be configured to fly like SpaceShipTwo through the advance segment of the flight profile to replicate the slither path to the runway before the first flight of the spacecraft. Think of it as a simulator that flies.
SpaceShipOne made some glide flights where the spacecraft is accepted to altitude and released. The assessment pilots use the flights to review flight characteristics and the relatively steep approach path to the runway before the first motorized flights are made.
Yet, during powered flights into space, SpaceShipTwo will go back to earth as a glider after reentering the atmosphere. The Virgin Galactic program has been postponed somewhat recently and the company says passenger flights would not occur until later in 2011 at the earliest.
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