Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic conducted a supersonic test flight over the Sierra Nevada mountains of its SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket ship on Thursday, the company said, three years after a fatal accident on an earlier version of the ship.

The aircraft was a SpaceShipTwo passenger rocket ship named Unity. After being released from a carrier plane at a height of 14,000 metres, a rocket motor kicked in, pushing the speed to over 2200km per hour and a height of 25,000 metres.

This time the jet landed safely, prompting Richard Branson to tweet that "space feels tantalisingly close now."

The company has not yet announced a date for the start of passenger flights but is selling tickets for a ride aboard SpaceShipTwo at $250,000 a seat. Rides will take passengers about 100 km above Earth, high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of Earth set against the blackness of space.

Virgin Galactic's original SpaceShipTwo vehicle broke apart during an October 2014 test flight that killed the crew in an accident that was ultimately attributed to pilot error.</s>Virgin Galactic is “back on track” after completing its first rocket-powered test flight since a fatal crash in late 2014.

The spaceflight company’s VSS Unity vehicle on Thursday successfully completed its first powered test flight, Virgin Galactic tweeted. During the mission, pilots David Mackay and Mark Stucky brought the ship to its top speed and altitude before guiding it back to the company’s California spaceport, Space.com reports.

After the voyage, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson tweeted that “space feels tantalisingly close now.”

VSS Unity has completed a series of unpowered test flights over the past year, according to Space.com, but Thursday’s mission marks Virgin Galactic’s first return to powered flight since the VSS Enterprise crashed in 2014, killing one of its pilots. The company will continue to run progressively longer test trips throughout 2018, Space.com reports, with the goal of launching commercial service by the end of the year.

Virgin Galactic aspires to “open space for everyone” and use “space for good while delivering an unparalleled customer experience,” according to its website. The VSS Unity and its sister spaceships will eventually “offer everyone the opportunity to become private astronauts and experience the wonder of space for themselves,” the company says.</s>Earlier today, the VSS Unity went supersonic during crewed tests, reaching speeds of 1,220 miles per hour. It’s the first powered flight of Virgin Galactic’s new SpaceShipTwo aircraft, and the first flight since the 2014 disaster in which a pilot was killed and a co-pilot severely injured.

After detaching from the carrier mothership VMS Eve, and gliding above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, the VSS Unity fired its rocket engines for about 30 seconds, attaining a maximum speed of Mach 1.6. The experimental spaceplane, with its crew of two, landed shortly thereafter at around 12:05 pm ET, according to Virgin Galactic. Though just a test, it’s an important milestone for the Richard Branson-led company, which aims to eventually offer suborbital flights to space tourists. 



Back on October 31, 2014, Unity’s predecessor, the VSS Enterprise, crashed, killing the pilot and badly injuring the co-pilot, who survived by deploying his parachute. An official investigation found that the craft’s braking system had been deployed prematurely by the co-pilot, resulting in the “in-flight anomaly.” All ensuing flight tests were canceled as Virgin Galactic worked to remedy the various deficiencies, both procedural and mechanical.

Two years ago, the private company introduced an updated version of the spaceplane that would replace the destroyed SpaceShipTwo craft. The Enterprise was built by aircraft developer Scaled Composites, but the updated version was manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based subsidiary of Virgin Galactic.

The VSS Unity, named by the late physicist Stephen Hawking, had been undergoing engine and gliding tests over the past several months. Today’s successful test, with pilots Mark Stucky and Dave Mackay at the helm, means the company can continue to move forward with its plans.

Eventually, Virgin Galactic would like to have a fleet of these SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplanes, each capable of carrying paying customers 68 miles above the Earth’s surface—a full six miles higher than the so-called Kármán line, which is conventionally used to mark the edge of space—and back. The estimated price tag for a single trip will be $250,000, but the spaceplane could also be used to carry science equipment and measuring devices to high altitudes for NASA and other organizations.</s>Virgin Galactic's new spaceship climbed at supersonic speed over California's Mojave Desert on Thursday in the company's first powered flight since the fatal crash of its original rocketship in 2014.

The flight of VSS Unity was a major step forward, said the company, which plans to carry tourists on suborbital hops into the lower reaches of space where they can see the Earth far below and the stars beyond.

Virgin Galactic said the milestone marked the start of the final portion of Unity's flight test program, which began after a 2014 test flight crash of its predecessor, VSS Enterprise, that killed one of its two pilots and set back the project.

In previous test flights, Unity either remained attached to Virgin Mother Ship Eve, the specially designed jet that carries it into space, or was released to glide back to the ground without lighting its engine.

Pilots Mark "Forger" Stucky and Dave Mackay were in the cockpit of Unity as it took off from Mojave Air & Space Port at 8:02am attached to VMS Eve and climbed to an altitude of 14,173 metres over the Sierra Nevada.

Unity was released and a few seconds later its engine ignited.

The spaceship climbed steeply and went supersonic — Mach 1.87 — during the 30-second rocket burn.

With the engine shut down, Unity coasted upward to 25,686 metres.

The pilots raised the craft's unique twin-tail booms to a 60-degree angle to the fuselage to slow and stabilise Unity during the initial stages of descent, and then lowered them back to the conventional configuration lower in the atmosphere.

The runway landing was described as smooth.

The tail booms are known as "feathers" because their function is likened to the feathers of a badminton shuttlecock.

The Enterprise accident in 2014 occurred when the co-pilot prematurely unlocked the "feathers" and the ship broke apart.

Virgin Galactic noted Unity had safety mechanisms resulting from the accident.

The "feathers" concept was developed by aerospace designer Burt Rutan and demonstrated during the 2004 flights of the experimental SpaceShipOne, which was funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and was the first privately developed, manned rocket to reach space.

Unity is a follow-on production model called SpaceShipTwo, built by The Spaceship Company.

Virgin Galactic envisions a fleet operating from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

The company also plans to offer flights for research and satellite deployment.</s>Richard Branson’s space company Virgin Galactic on April 5 successfully completed the first powered test flight of its VSS Unity spacecraft following the deadly crash of a prototype in 2014.This video shows the rocket-powered spacecraft being launched from its carrier aircraft, The White Knight II, to the edge of space and its safe landing at Mojave Air and Space Port, California. Virgin Galactic’s plan to launch tourists into space suffered a major setback when an earlier version of its spacecraft broke apart killing one of its two pilots during a test mission in 2014. Credit: Virgin Galactic via Storyful</s>Virgin Galactic’s second piloted suborbital spaceship made its first rocket-powered test flight Thursday, three-and-a-half years after the loss of an earlier model in an accident that killed one test pilot and injured another.

Designed to ferry paying space tourists and research payloads to edge of space, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle has been in development more than a decade. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, modeled the SpaceShipTwo design on SpaceShipOne, a smaller rocket plane that became the first privately-built craft to carry a person into space in 2004.

The winged vehicle, named VSS Unity, dropped from the belly of Virgin Galactic’s carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, around 9 a.m. PDT (12 p.m. EDT; 1600 GMT) Thursday and fired its hybrid rocket motor for 30 seconds, accelerating to a top speed of Mach 1.87, nearly twice the speed of sound, the company said in a statement.

Pilots Mark “Forger” Stucky and Dave Mackay were in the VSS Unity cockpit.

The drop occurred about an hour after the VMS Eve mothership took off from Mojave Air and Spaceport in Mojave, California. The carrier jet, piloted by Mike Masucci and Nicola Pecile, climbed to an altitude of around 46,500 feet (about 14,200 meters) over the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

After turning on a course back toward Mojave, the VMS Eve released the VSS Unity spaceship, and the spaceplane fired its rocket motor a few seconds later. Burning a mixture of rubber-based solid fuel — called HTPB — and nitrous oxide, the rear-mounted rocket engine propelled SpaceShipTwo to nearly twice the speed of sound as the pilots maneuvered the craft on an 80-degree climb.

After the rocket motor shut down, the craft coasted to a maximum altitude of 84,271 feet (about 25,700 meters).

Thursday’s flight was the first powered test flight by the VSS Unity spaceship, built after the crash of Virgin Galactic’s first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, which killed co-pilot Michael Alsbury and injured lead pilot Peter Siebold after an in-flight breakup 10 miles above California’s Mojave Desert on Oct. 31, 2014.

Federal investigators concluded Alsbury prematurely unlocked the craft’s tail feathering system on the doomed test flight. Used to re-orient and slow the spacecraft for its descent back to a runway landing, the twin tail booms are supposed to be unlocked and rotated later in the SpaceShipTwo flight sequence.

Neither pilot commanded the feathering mechanism to engage, but strong aerodynamic forces caused the feather’s two booms to rotate into their re-entry positions once they were unlocked, leading to the vehicle’s disintegration.

The National Transportation Safety Board also faulted Scaled Composites, which built the VSS Enterprise spacecraft and employed Alsbury and Siebold, for failing to address the risks and consequences of a pilot-induced error, raising chances that a catastrophic accident could be instigated by a single mistake.

The VSS Unity rocket plane incorporates safety measures to prevent pilots from prematurely unlocking the feathering mechanism, which apparently functioned as intended Thursday. Virgin Galactic took over management of the SpaceShipTwo test flight campaign in the wake of the 2014 accident, and VSS Unity was manufactured by a Virgin subsidiary named The Spaceship Company, or TSC.

Engineers also changed the SpaceShipTwo rocket motor design from one that used plastic-based fuel to one that burns rubber-based fuel. Virgin Galactic previously used rubber fuel in the SpaceShipTwo motor, but switched to the plastic-based compound before the 2014 crash. The propulsion system was not a factor in the accident.

Thursday’s test flight was the highest and fastest for Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo program, eclipsing marks set by the VSS Enterprise’s three powered test flights before the ship crashed. The test Thursday came after seven glide flights by VSS Unity and its test pilot team, plus four “captive carry” flights when the ship remained attached to the jet-powered VMS Eve mothership.

After the rocket burn, Stucky and Mackay configured the tail booms into their feather position for descent, then lowered the feathering mechanism as the spacecraft dropped below 50,000 feet. VSS Unity also jettisoned oxidizer left over in its rocket motor, then glided to a landing back at Mojave.

“The flight has generated valuable data on flight, motor and vehicle performance which our engineers will be reviewing,” Virgin Galactic said in a statement. “It also marks a key moment for the test flight program, entering now the exciting phase of powered flight and the expansion to full duration rocket burns. While we celebrate that achievement, the team remains focused on the challenging tasks which still lie ahead.”

Virgin Galactic is in stiff competition with Blue Origin, founded by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos, to be the first company to begin commercial suborbital space tourism and research service with human-rated spacecraft. Blue Origin’s New Shepard design is different the the Virgin Galactic’s vehicle, using a reusable capsule that takes off like a conventional rocket, then comes back to the ground via parachute.

Officials did not say Thursday when SpaceShipTwo will make a full-duration test flight, or when commercial passengers could begin flying with Virgin Galactic. Company officials said last year they hoped to begin flying tourists up to an altitude of 50 miles (80 kilometers) some time in 2018.

Two more SpaceShipTwo vehicles are under construction in Mojave.

Operational flights by Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fleet will occur from Spaceport America near the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Branson tweeted after Thursday’s test flight: “Data review to come, then on to the next flight. Space feels tantalizingly close now.”</s>Thursday’s successful test is a milestone for Virgin Galactic’s testing program and puts the company one step closer toward its goal of ferrying tourists into suborbital space.

Space-tourism firm Virgin Galactic on Thursday conducted the first rocket-powered flight test of its new SpaceShipTwo over the Mojave Desert since a 2014 fatal accident.

The Mojave company had conducted a series of glide tests but had not fired up the spaceship’s rocket-powered motor. The spaceship, dubbed VSS Unity by the late British physicist Stephen Hawking during a 2016 ceremony, has now undergone 12 total flight tests.

Thursday’s successful test is a milestone for Virgin Galactic’s testing program and puts the company one step closer toward its goal of ferrying tourists into suborbital space for a price tag of $250,000. Four years ago, a previous version of SpaceShipTwo broke apart in midair during a powered test flight, killing one of two pilots.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that the failure was caused by premature deployment of a feather system designed to help the space plane re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. The agency later faulted that spaceship’s builder, Scaled Composites, saying the design should have protected against human error.

Since then, Virgin Galactic has moved space-plane building duties in-house and VSS Unity was built by the Spaceship Co., which operates at the Mojave Air & Space Port.

Around 8 a.m., the company tweeted that mother ship VMS Eve and the attached VSS Unity had taken off. About an hour after liftoff, Virgin Galactic tweeted that VSS Unity separated cleanly from the larger plane and that its two pilots later propelled the spaceship upward by igniting its rocket motor for a “planned partial duration burn.”

During the spaceship’s flight, it reached supersonic speeds of about Mach 1.6, according to a tweet from Virgin Galactic’s founder, British billionaire Richard Branson.

The spaceship landed around 9:15 a.m. Minutes later, Branson tweeted that the company was “back on track.”</s>VSS Unity is a part of the SpaceShipTwo class of spaceplanes designed by Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Company to be dropped from a mothership, the WhiteKnightTwo. WhiteKnightTwo carries the plane up into the air before it's released, when the Unity uses its rocket propulsion to shoot itself up to the Karman line, just shy of the very edge of space at 100 km above Earth's surface.

Unity only reaches heights of about 80 km, but it's still enough to very easily view our planet's curvature.

​SpaceShipTwo's other spaceplane, the VSS Enterprise, was instead built by Scaled Composites, but it crashed in a test flight in October 2014, killing one of its pilots and seriously injuring another.

Enterprise was designed to fly along the Karman line. Unity, which "incorporates the additional safety mechanisms adopted after the 2014 VSS Enterprise test flight accident," according to a press release, is much heavier and is not designed to reach quite those heights.

VSS Unity went through more than a year of testing prior to today's test flight, which included seven glide tests, Sputnik reported. Unity also broke the sound barrier for the first time in today's test flight, reaching a speed of Mach 1.87, or about 1,434 mph.

​WhiteKnightTwo launched from Mojave in the morning and carried Unity up to an altitude of 6,500 feet over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Once released from the mothership, Unity's pilots aimed the spaceship upwards for an 80 degree blast toward the sky. Unity used its rocket propulsion for a full 30 seconds before eventually gliding back down to the Mojave desert, making a smooth runway landing.

The flight generated "valuable data on flight, motor and vehicle performance," which Virgin Galactic's engineers are now studying. The next phase of testing is also now ready to commence, which will expand the duration of the rocket burns to their full potential under the design.</s>Virgin Galactic’s new SpaceShipTwo flew at supersonic speed over California’s Mojave Desert on Thursday, marking the first powered flight for the company since the fatal 2014 crash of its original rocketship.

VSS Unity’s flight was a “big step forward,” the company said. The craft is reportedly named for Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist who died March 14 after dedicating his life to studying the cosmos.

Eventually, Virgin Galactic plans to carry tourists on suborbital hops into the lower reaches of space, where they can see Earth far below and the stars beyond.

Virgin Galactica’s goal of space tours has a price tag of $250,000, but the company has not officially disclosed a timeline for its first customer flights, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Customers would experience several minutes of weightlessness when their space plane reaches suborbital space, the Times reported, citing the company’s website.

Virgin Galactic said Thursday's milestone marked the start of the final portion of Unity’s flight test program, which began after a 2014 test-flight crash of its predecessor, VSS Enterprise, which killed one of its two pilots and set back the project.

The company noted that Unity has safety mechanisms that were developed after the accident.

On Thursday, pilots Mark “Forger” Stucky and Dave Mackay were in the cockpit of Unity as it took off from Mojave Air & Space Port at 8:02 a.m. attached to VMS Eve and climbed to an altitude of 46,500 feet over the Sierra Nevada.

Unity was released, and a few seconds later, its engine ignited. The spaceship climbed steeply and went supersonic — Mach 1.87 — during the 30-second rocket burn.

With the engine shut down, Unity coasted upward to an apogee of 84,271 feet.

The tail booms are known as “feathers” because their function is likened to the feathers of a badminton shuttlecock.

The Enterprise accident occurred when the co-pilot prematurely unlocked the “feathers” and the ship broke apart.

The spaceships are built by the Spaceship Company, which operates in Mojave and is a unit of Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic also envisions a fleet operating from Spaceport America in New Mexico, and plans to offer flights for research as well as satellite deployment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>Virgin Galactic has successfully completed a powered test flight of its new SpaceShipTwo craft that will power tourists in to space.

The new craft is called the VSS Unity and replaces the VSS Enterprise that crashed in 2014, killing co-pilot Michael Alsbury.

Richard Branson's company released video of the test flight, which showed the craft successfully separating from the carry vehicle and using its rocket thrusters to reach supersonic speed.

The craft successfully reached an altitude of 84,271 ft before returning to Earth.

The test took place in the Mojave desert at about 8 a.m. local time, The VMS Eve carrier plane took off from Mojave, California, carrying SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity before releasing it 46,500 feet (14,000 m) above ground, Virgin Galactic said in a statement.

A rocket motor then accelerated Unity to Mach 1.87 during a 30-second rocket burn before the ship's two pilots shut it down.

"Space feels tantalisingly close now," Branson Tweeted after the test flight.

Virgin Galactic's original SpaceShipTwo vehicle broke apart during an October 2014 test flight that killed the co-pilot and seriously injured the pilot, in an accident that was ultimately attributed to pilot error. Both were employees of Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman subsidiary based in Mojave that built the vehicle.

The Spaceship Company, a Virgin Galactic sister firm also owned by Branson's London-based Virgin Group, built the new SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity, the second in a planned fleet of five, and took over the test-flight program from Scaled.

In 2016, the space company was granted an operating license to fly its passenger ship with the world's first paying space tourists once final safety tests are completed.

The company has not yet announced a date for the start of passenger flights but is selling tickets for a ride aboard SpaceShipTwo at $250,000 a seat.

Rides will take passengers about 62 miles (100 km) above Earth, high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of Earth set against the blackness of space.

Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard tweeted: "@virgingalactic back on track. Successful powered flight, Mach 1.6. Data review to come, then on to the next flight. Space feels tantalisingly close now."

The space tourism company said in a statement: "The flight has generated valuable data on flight, motor and vehicle performance which our engineers will be reviewing.

"It also marks a key moment for the test flight programme, entering now the exciting phase of powered flight and the expansion to full duration rocket burns.

"While we celebrate that achievement, the team remains focused on the challenging tasks which still lie ahead."
Virgin Galactic successfully tests VSS Unity, the first test since a October 2014 crash destroyed a previous version, VSS Enterprise.