The spaceplane VSS Unity made a second flight on supersonic speed, according to the American company Virgin Galactic. The tests deemed successful, was held on may 29, 2018 on the ground in the Mojave desert (CA).
During the tests, the spacecraft separated from the carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo, then 31 seconds included rocket engine runup of 1.9 Mach number (2267 km/h) and altitude of about 35 kilometers.
The purpose of the test VSS Unity was the testing of the flight control system of the vehicle in the supersonic regime. During the recent tests in the spaceplane was integrated passenger seat and associated equipment.
The first test VSS Unity in the supersonic regime took place on 5 April 2018. Then the ship was able to reach speeds of 1.87 Mach number (2231 km/h). The previous 11 flights of the spaceplane took place from February 2016 passed without the inclusion of the rocket engine.
Rocket suborbital manned spaceplane VSS Unity presented in February 2016, the year as an improved model of the VSS Enterprise, crashed in Oct 2014 due to pilot error. VSS VSS Unity and Enterprise are models of the first and second generations, respectively, of the spacecraft SpaceShipTwo.
Designed and built by Scaled Composites, The Spaceship Company, the Virgin Galactic spaceplane designed for suborbital tourist flights. The cost of such travel for each of the six passengers is estimated at 200 thousand dollars. In Virgin Galactic hope to start commercial use of VSS Unity in 2018.
Conducted another successful test spaceplane Virgin Galactic
Nikolai Khizhnyak