SpaceShipTwo

SpaceShipTwo

The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is a suborbital, air-launched spaceplane, designed for space tourism. It is under development by The Spaceship Company, a California-based joint venture between Scaled Composites and the Virgin Group, as part of the Tier 1b program.

SpaceShipTwo is carried to its launch altitude by a mothership, the Scaled Composites White Knight Two, before being launched 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. The aircraft has been undergoing active flight-testing since 2010, having conducted 22 successful gliding flight tests as of November 2012.

The Virgin Galactic spaceline plans to operate a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes in a private passenger-carrying service, starting in late 2013, and are already taking bookings, with a suborbital flight carrying a ticket price of US$200,000.