5 December 2016
Virgin Galactic’s spaceship, the VSS Unity, which will carry passengers into space and then glide back to Earth, has successfully completed its first free flight. Previous flights of the VSS Unity have been while attached to its carrier mothership, WhiteKnightTwo.
There were five people aboard VSS Unity for the 1 hour 20 minute flight – only ten minutes of which was actually free flight – two pilots flying, with two more on board and a flight test engineer.
“We have not yet reached the rocket-powered phase of the test flight programme,” said Virgin Galactic. “First we need to gather test flight data to confirm our analyses and calculations about how VSS Unity will perform in a wide variety of real-world flight conditions.”
The VSS Unity was flying light and slow, reaching a maximum speed of approximately Mach 0.6 while gliding from an altitude of 50,000ft.
Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo mothership carrying the VSS Unity slung between the two fuselages. Top: VSS Unity in free flight gliding back to Earth. [Photos: Virgin Galactic]
During the previous VSS Unity flight in September, attached to WhiteKnightTwo, the results were encouraging enough that the team agreed that no further captive carry flights were needed.
The glide test flights will test and prove the performance of the vehicle in a variety of conditions: both heavy (e.g. simulating the full weight of a load of fuel, oxidiser, and people) and light (with empty tanks), and in between, at a variety of flight path angles and airspeeds.
This testing of the ‘corners of the box’ is designed to demonstrate how VSS Unity will perform as it returns from space, after the feather system is retracted and the vehicle becomes a glider and lands on the runway like an aircraft.
