William Atkins
Sunday, 06 December 2009 20:45
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
Virgin Galactic will formally unveil its new SpaceShipTwo spacecraft on Monday afternoon, December 7, 2009, at the Mojave Spaceport in California, as one of the important steps toward eventually providing suborbital space flights for paying customers.
The official rollout of VSS
Enterprise, the first of a series of SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes, will be viewed exclusively on Monday afternoon by the customers of Virgin Galactic who have paid around $200,000 for a suborbital flight into space.
The eight-person (six passengers and two pilots) craft is being financed by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, through Virgin Galactic, and being built by aerospace designer Burt Rutan, through the company Scaled Composites.
Scaled Composites, under the direction of Rutan, has built the first SpaceShipTwo, which is formally called “Model 339 SpaceShipTwo."
VSS
Enterprise, named after the
Star Trek ship of the same name, is being developed by
The Spaceship Company, a joint venture of
Scaled Composites and Virgin Group (
Virgin Galactic).
Customers of Virgin Galactic with confirmed reservations are invited to the Monday afternoon, December 7, 2009 unveiling of SpaceShipTwo (VSS
Enterprise), which will be hosted by Sir Richard Branson and aircraft designer Burt Rutan.
SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is one of two main spacecraft for Virgin Galactic’s venture into suborbital space with paying passengers.
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