Space Ship Two
The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is a suborbital, air-launched spaceplane designed for space tourism. It is under development as part of the Tier 1b program under contract to The Spaceship Company, a California-based company that is 100% owned by its sister company Virgin Galactic.
SpaceShipTwo is carried to its launch altitude by a jet-powered mothership, the Scaled Composites White Knight Two, before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere, powered by a rocket motor. It then glides back to Earth and performs a conventional runway landing. The spaceship was officially unveiled to the public on 7 December 2009 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. On 29 April 2013, after three years of unpowered testing, the spacecraft successfully performed its first powered test flight.
The Virgin Galactic spaceline plans to operate a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes in a private passenger-carrying service, starting in 2014, and have been taking bookings for some time, with a suborbital flight carrying a ticket price of US$200,000. The spaceplane could also be used to carry scientific payloads for NASA and other organisations. The ticket price will be increasing to $250,000 in 2013.
Read more about Space Ship Two: Design Overview, Development, Commercial Operation, Production, Specifications
Famous quotes containing the words space and/or ship:
“Time in his little cinema of the heart
Giving a première to Hate and Pain;
And Space urbanely keeping us apart.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
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—Charles Larkworthy. Denison Clift. Anton Lorenzen (Bela Lugosi)