News Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity Successfully Completed 2nd Powered Test Flight

Nicholas Kang

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They made it!


WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane performed a successful test flight May 29, bringing the company one step closer to realizing its long-delayed dreams of space tourism and research flights.

VSS Unity, the second SpaceShipTwo built for Virgin Galactic, took off attached to its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft at about 11:40 a.m. Eastern from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. About an hour later, SpaceShipTwo separated from WhiteKnightTwo and fired its hybrid rocket motor for 31 seconds.

The vehicle reached a top speed of Mach 1.9 and altitude of 34,900 meters on the flight, both records for the SpaceShipTwo test flight program. The spaceplane glided to a runway landing in Mojave about 10 minutes later.

ss2-unity-2ndpowered-879x485.jpg

A key difference in this test from the previous one, the company said in a post-flight statement, was a shift of the vehicle’s center of gravity rearward by adding passenger seats and other equipment in the main cabin. That was intended to more closely simulate the conditions of an operational flight, when the vehicle will carry up to six people in addition to the two pilots.

Source: Spacenews.com, Virgin Galactic
 
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GLS

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That dances quite a bit both in yaw and pitch when under thrust... :uhh:
 

GLS

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IIRC Spaceship 1 had a similar control issue on its first space flight and they had to adjust it for subsequent flights.

Yes, and it's not the first flight of this design... and it still dances visibly. :shrug:
 

Urwumpe

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Yes, and it's not the first flight of this design... and it still dances visibly. :shrug:

Well, I would not say its unusual to dance under thrust. Its a hybrid rocket engine. Without a rapid TVC system, it should be hard to reduce it.
 
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