Virgin Galactic unveils Spaceship 2

The spaceship will be able to lift eight passengers into orbit, it was also revealed that the plane that will lift it to a height of 15 kilometers, the White Knight 2 will be built entirely of composite materials and will consume bio-fuel

Virgin Galactic unveiled this week at a press conference at the Museum of Natural History in New York for the first time the spacecraft that will bring ordinary passengers into space - Spaceship 2.

In fact, two vehicles were revealed - Space Ship 2, which will take the passengers on a suborbital journey in space, and the White Knight 2, a carrier plane that will raise the spacecraft to a height of about 15 km, from where it will continue on its own. The design is based on Scaled's Space Ship 1 spacecraft A composite that won the X-PRIZE in October 2004.

According to Virgin Galactic, the mother ship is almost ready and will reach the testing stage in the summer of 2008. After the tests are completed, it will be the largest aircraft in the world made entirely of composite carbon compounds, and it will be able to raise Space Ship 2 to a great height.

Unlike Spaceship 1, which had space for one pilot and two passengers, Spaceship 2 will have space for eight paying passengers. Currently, the spacecraft is about 60% ready. The passengers will spend two and a half hours in the air, of which they will feel total weightlessness for five minutes.
But there are also other differences. White Knight 2 contains an additional crew cabin, a replica of the one inside Spaceship 2. This will give passengers a chance to experience a little taste of what the full journey will look like. As part of the flight plan, the White Knight 2 plane will make several parabolic flights, like NASA's Vomit Comet plane - to provide its passengers with a bit of the feeling of weightlessness.

The company said that 200 passengers have already registered, and another 85 have expressed interest in the flight. In fact, 80 of Space Ship 2's passengers have already been medically evaluated and trained in centrifuges at a special facility in Philadelphia.

Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic was emotional at the press conference. "The design of both aircraft is impressive and exceeds all expectations for the future of commercial aviation, than we imagined when we registered the name Virgin Galactic in 1999. Brett and his staff have done a good job and I am also very impressed by the work of the hardworking Foster & Co. and URS on the design of Spaceport America in New Mexico Finally, we are proud to have been able to develop a biofuel solution for space launches, and we look forward to working with Pert & Whitney and with Virgin Fuels to try out the most suitable fuel mixture for the PW308A engines that will power the carrier aircraft." If all goes well, the first passengers will fly to give a route in 2009.

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Scaled Composites is to blame for the accident that killed three people at its missile test center

A report by safety researchers determined that the company did not train its employees on how to use nitric acid * The company was fined $25

Safety investigators in California have determined that the Scaled Composite Company is guilty of an omission that resulted in an explosion that killed three workers in the Mojave Desert in July 2007. The company will now pay a fine of $25. This is how the website space.com delivers.

Scaled Composite, owned by Brett Rutan, went from strength to strength until the accident in 2004. The company launched the space plane Space Ship 1 to a height of 114 kilometers and won the X-PRIZE award in the amount of 10 million dollars.

Since the historic win, Rotan made an alliance with the British businessman Richard Branson, who founded the Virgin Galactic venture and started building a space base in the New Mexico desert. From this base, the plane's successor, Spaceship 2, will be launched, which will be able to put six passengers into orbit. A mother plane, named the White Knight, will raise the passengers to a height of 15 kilometers and from there the spacecraft will continue to accelerate its hybrid engine under its own power, and the passengers will be able to experience weightlessness, and observe the curvature of the Earth.

Unfortunately, the three employees working that day at Scaled Composites' testing facility in the Mojave Desert were killed in an accident during tests involving the use of rocket fuel. In the report, the experts wrote that the company failed to provide effective information and training about the physical and health risks associated with nitric acid treatment.

As you may recall, a few months ago senior officials from Virgin Galactic were hosted in Israel, led by the Space Flight Marketing Manager, Caroline Wincher. In response to the question of the science site, are you not afraid that the failure of the rocket that is supposed to be used by Spaceship 2 and which caused the death of three people at the test site will affect the public's desire to fly into space, Wincher replied:

Wincher: "The accident happened at Scaled Composites, which is the subcontractor that builds the spacecraft fleet for us during testing. Even Brett Rutan referred to it as the equivalent of Apollo 1. It didn't happen in the engine but when fuel was mixed in some of the engine components. California State Department of Health and Safety We are investigating the incident and if something needs to be changed in the design of the missile, we will certainly change it, because the issue of safety is the most important. The date for the start of the service is not for nothing, the intention is to carry out hundreds of test flights of the mother plane and the spacecraft in the atmosphere and many more forays into space as needed to ensure the highest level of safety. Moreover, the first flight is reserved for Charles Branson himself for his son, daughter, and Olli Also to his mother, as well as to Brett Rutan, the developer of the spaceship. Branson believes that he cannot sell a product to others if he does not try it himself, all employees of the company are required To go through training similar to those that space tourists will go through, for example I flew in a jet plane that simulates 15 seconds of zero gravity, and it was an amazing experience."

Virgin Galactic turns to the Israeli market
Three killed and three injured in an explosion during the Scaled Composite spacecraft engine test