The spacecraft SpaceShipTwo, which in the near future, space tourists will be able to make commercial flights passed another flight test, successfully completing the seventh flight. Like last time, the ship rose to a height of fifteen kilometers dvuhfyuzelyazhny the plane-carrier WhiteKnightTwo, and then disconnected and started planning. With the engine off, the vehicle can fly at speeds of 1100 kilometers per hour, and that such results today SS2 reached during rolling flight.
Richard Branson wrote in his Twitter feed that SpaceShipTwo made a seventh flight into planning mode, and successfully landed. The head of Virgin Galactic, expressed the hope that the test flight without engines for SS2 was the last one.
Exciting day for @virgingalactic with #SpaceShipTwo dropping down from 50,000 ft straight down at Mach 0.9 — (hopefully) final glide test flight
— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) January 11, 2018.
The engines ceased to turn on after a failed mission that took place in 2014, then, after separation from the carrier aircraft, the ship caught fire. The accident led to the death of one of the pilots, and the second managed to eject. Now, when the procedure office developed a hundred percent, and the engines are tested, it’s time to start a full-scale test flights.
Development of the ship conducted by the company since 2009, but even now it is difficult to say when Virgin Galactics will begin to carry tourists to the edge of space. Full testing engines, like many other tests still to come. Now the ship is flying, even without the fuel tank that developers mimic with a water-filled tank.
From Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo made the final test flight planning
Vyacheslav Larionov