Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo slither Flight

After four confined carry flights attached to its mother ship Eve/cite>, SpaceShipTwo was released for the first time on yesterday. Later than being released at 45,000 feet, Scaled complex test pilot Pete Siebold achieved several flight quality tests throughout the 11-minute flight before moving down on runway 30 at the Mojave Air and Space Port. In a video released by Virgin Galactic, early morning arrangements can be seen followed by in-flight footage from the discharge to touch down. SpaceShipTwo (aka VSS Enterprise) is obviously bigger than its predecessor, SpaceShipOne. Intended to carry six passengers on a suborbital trip to space, the fuselage of SpaceShipTwo is equal to that of the fuselages on Eve. The spacecraft has a much wider landing gear position than SpaceShipOne and uses a nose skid parallel to Burt Rutan’s first spaceship design. It also uses a belly-mounted speed brake which can be seen at some point in the landing. The flight test team at Scaled Composites is predictable to entire numerous flight tests within the next 18 months before moving the first passengers to space. Virgin Galactic is setting up on flying standard flights from its Spaceport America in New Mexico beginning some time in 2012.