Virgin SpaceShip or VSS Unity has finally been flown in its first test flight. The test flight has been made at the Mojave Desert in California. The flight was made with VSS Unity attached to its mother craft, WhiteKnightTwo.
The flight of VSS Unity and WhiteKnightTwo was done at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. VSS Unity has been created by Virgin's own subsidiary, The SpaceShip Company, unlike the first VSS that was flown almost two years ago. The first craft, VSS Enterprise ended in disaster when the craft broke up on its test flight in October 2014, according to Geek Wire.
With VSS Unity design changes have been made, partly based on the findings of the crash. VSS Unity is piloted by Mark Stucky and Dave Mackay. During the whole test flight, VSS Unity was attached to WhiteKnightTwo.
Virgin Galactic's site describes the test flight as a flying wind tunnel. The test was made to see the integrity of VSS Unity in flying conditions. Flying WhiteKnightTwo, called VMS Eve for the test flight are Mike Masucci and Todd Ericson. Flight test engineer Wes Persall has also been part of the flight.
More captive test flights such as the one made would be done, but only after analyzing the data collected from the test flight. After the captive test flights and data analysis, the second phase of testing would begin. In the second phase, VSS Unity would be released from its mother craft to glide until it lands. After that stage would come rocket-powered test flights.
The final test flights would be done once VSS Unity could be flown to outer space, at around 80 to 100 kilometers above Earth. Commercial test flights are hoped to be made once the test flights have been completed.
SpaceShipTwo is said to be different from other space programs since unlike NASA's space shuttle or other such projects it will start flying from a carrier aircraft and then at a designated altitude would then be released to make its own flight into space. The test flight of VSS Unity and VMS Eve took three hours and 43 minutes.
