William Atkins
Monday, 22 December 2008 20:14
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
The WhiteKnightTwo airship made its first test flight on Sunday, December 21, 2008, as it flew about 59 minutes above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, U.S.A.
Made by
Scaled Composites, the jet-powered Model 348 WK2 carrier aircraft lifted off at about 8:17 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) on Sunday, December 21, 2008.
With four Pratt and Whitney PW308A engines, the aircraft flew its test flight at just under one hour, landing at approximately 9:17 a.m. PST.
It flew to an altitude of 4,880 meters (16,000 feet)—or about three miles up in the sky.
Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn stated,
"It reached an altitude 4,000 ft above the original test plan's maximum altitude. That is how confident we are about the aircraft. Now we have to download all the data. There will be another flight early in the new year.” Globalflight.com: “
World Exclusive Video: SpaceShipTwo's mothership maiden flight!”]
Sir Richard Branson’s
Virgin Galactic, within his Virgin Group, will provide sub-orbital spaceflights to paying customers with the use of the WK2 and SS2.
The twin-fuselage carrier aircraft WK2 will be used to carry the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) to about 50,000 feet into the air, at which time the SS2 will be dropped and its rockets ignited, so it can take its space-faring passengers into a suborbital flight into space.
Page two discusses more of the flight along with comments made on the day of the historic flight.
