Virgin Galactic has commenced captive trials of the SpaceShip Two VSS Unity with its carrier ship WhiteKnight Two on Thursday.
Virgin Galactic has commenced captive trials of the SpaceShip Two VSS Unity with its carrier ship WhiteKnight Two on Thursday.
VSS Unity mated to the mother ship took off from the spaceport in Mojave and will remained “mated” to the carrier aircraft for the duration of the flight, from takeoff all the way through landing.
This is the first time the SpaceShipTwo has become airborne since the first prototype VSS Enterprise was destroyed during a fatal in-flight break-up in Oct 2014, killing one of the two test pilots.
Throughout the flight, WhiteKnightTwo will served as a unique “flying wind tunnel,” enabling to safely capture high fidelity aerodynamic performance data on the vehicle.
The flight test will confirm extensive simulation and ground testing by showing the real performance of many subsystems and components at cold temperatures, low atmospheric pressures, and high aircraft-like altitudes.
All of those data points will be used to move into a series of glide flight tests, during which VSS Unity is released to fly home on her own, followed by rocket-powered flight tests of increasingly ambitious scope.
