Private Spaceship Makes First Glide, Landing Tests

VSS Enterprise carried aloft by the mothership (Virgin Galactic)

Virgin Galactic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a company developing the world’s first commercial manned space flight system and tourism business, completed yesterday the first piloted free flight of its craft, the VSS Enterprise.

The company says its two main goals of the flight were a clean release of the test craft from its mothership and for the pilots to free fly and glide back and land at Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The test craft was released from its mothership at an altitude of 45,000 feet(13,700 meters), piloted by Pete Siebold and assisted by co-pilot Mike Alsbury.

Other factors tested include verification that all systems worked prior and following the clean release of the craft, evaluation of handling and stall characteristics, evaluation of stability and control of the craft against predictions from design and simulation work, verification of performance by evaluating the lift-to-drag ratio of the spaceship during glide flight, and practice a landing approach at altitude and finally descend and land.

Virgin Galactic is a subsidiary of the Virgin Group, chaired by Sir Richard Branson. The company says it has 370 customer deposits for space flights totaling $50 million.