12 October 2010
The Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has achieved a major milestone in its development by achieving manned free flight from over 45,000 ft (13,700 metres) and successfully glides to land at Mojave Air and Spaceport.
A statement from Virgin Galactic explained that the spaceship was released from its mothership at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 metres). During its first flight the spaceship was piloted by Pete Siebold, assisted by Mike Alsbury as co-pilot. The two main goals of the flight were to carry out a clean release of the spaceship from its mothership and for the pilots to free fly and glide back and land at Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
Other detailed objectives of the flight were successfully completed, including; verification that all systems worked prior and following the clean release of Enterprise; initial evaluation of handling and stall characteristics; qualitative evaluation of stability and control of SS2 against predictions from design and simulation work; verification of performance by evaluating the lift-to-drag ratio of the spaceship during glide flight; practice a landing approach at altitude and finally descend and land. <a href=”http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/vss-enterprise-completes-first-manned-glide-flight/”>Click here for more</a>
