Avi Blizovsky
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In the Mujabi Desert, preparations are being completed for the SpaceShip-29.9 spacecraft's flight tomorrow, Wednesday, September 1, for its first test flight in order to win the X-PRIZE. The company also scheduled a second attempt on October 4, although the terms of the competition also allow it to make the second flight by October 13 to win the prize.
We will continue and update of course.
And in the meantime, it became known that in any case Space-Ship-1 will have follow-on spacecraft that will be stronger than it and flight in them will be available to everyone.
Entrepreneur Richard Branson intends to launch the first passenger service into space in 2007. Branson, founder and head of the Virgin company, will team up with Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, to build five spaceships for flights of two to three hours. Allen is one of the owners of Mujabi Aerospace Ventures, the company that was known until recently as Scaled Composites, and which was established by aviation pioneer Brett Rutan together with Paul Allen to take advantage of the technology developed for the Space-Ship-1 spacecraft.
Space-Ship-1 is one of over 20 ships competing for the X-Prize - a $10 million private entrepreneurial prize for the first non-governmental team to send humans to the brink of space twice in two weeks.
Rotan is already involved in another venture of Virgin - Goldflier - a jet plane designed to fly around the world without stopping to refuel.
The spaceships will reach an altitude of 130 kilometers - about 6 times more than normal commercial flights, and will include four minutes in zero gravity. The first spacecraft will be called VSS Enterprise. The venture, Virgin Galactic, will involve a $100 million investment in ground infrastructure and spaceships capable of carrying five people. A spaceship flight will cost about $200. Branson intends to use the profits from the first wealthy customers to lower prices in the following years, and allow regular tourists to fly into space as well. He expects about 3,000 customers in the first five years.
As you may remember, on June 21 of this year, the private spacecraft (SpaceShipOne) entered the history books when it became the first private manned spacecraft to reach the limit of space and even return. The spaceship built by aviation pioneer Brett Rutan exceeded the height of 100 kilometers. This was reported by the control center.
The spacecraft made the first 15 kilometers on top of a plane that was nicknamed the White Knight. At this point it was released, and the pilot, Michael Melvin, a 62-year-old retired test pilot, ignited its rocket engines and continued on its journey.
At this point, a malfunction occurred in the system that activates the ignition and the pilot had to activate the alternative system and lose valuable time and altitude. As a result, it was decided that in the competition for the prize, the company would take advantage of the possibility that, in addition to the pilot, there would be dummy equipment in the cabin weighing the equivalent of two passengers and not endangering real passengers, as allowed by the rules of the competition.
In addition to Space-Ship 1, a spacecraft built by a group of Canadian entrepreneurs - the Da Vinci Project - is expected to be launched in the coming days.
More details in X-PRIZE
https://www.hayadan.org.il/BuildaGate4/general2/data_card.php?Cat=~~~963570427~~~169&SiteName=hayadan
