On the way to commercial space flights: the first private spacecraft successfully entered the atmosphere

The first commercial spacecraft, the "Enterprise" spacecraft from Virgin Galactic, passed the most important test on the way to commercial flights into space: in a special test flight, the spacecraft entered the atmosphere, during the first and successful test of its unique "feather" configuration, a new technique for re-entering the atmosphere

The first commercial spacecraft, the "Enterprise" spacecraft from Virgin Galactic, passed the most important test on the way to commercial flights into space: in a special test flight, the spacecraft entered the atmosphere, during the first and successful test of its unique "feather" configuration, a new technique for re-entering the atmosphere

This test flight, the third in the last two weeks and the most significant so far, indicates another significant progress on the way of the Virgin Galactic company, the ambitious project of the billionaire Sir Richard Branson to operate commercial flights into space, at a cost of about 200 thousand dollars per ticket. These days, tickets for flights are also being marketed in Israel.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, also known as VSS Enterprise, has already made seven "solo" flights since December 2009.

The dramatic test flight, flown by astronauts Pete Siebold (Pete Siebold) and Clint Nichols (Clint Nichols), achieved a technological breakthrough in one of the most significant challenges facing space flights: re-entry into the atmosphere, accompanied by heat of thousands of degrees created by friction.

"This is exactly the same problem that created the Columbia disaster that we all unfortunately remember" explains Eliron Yaron, chairman of the "Galactic Dreamline" company that markets in Israel tickets to space on the "Enterprise", for flights that will start as early as next year "in place of the problematic thermal shield of the space shuttles, which is a piece that fell from it caused the great disaster, there is an elegant and much safer solution - the "feather configuration".

Yaron explains: "As soon as it is outside the atmosphere, the entire part of the tail configuration of the ship can be tilted to an angle of about 65 degrees. This configuration enables automatic control of the direction of the angle of the plane and creates a very stable position, which gives the astronaut the possibility of re-entering the atmosphere without touching hands, something that was not possible in spaceships before, without needing a computer system that controls the flight. The combination of strong traction and low weight (thanks to the lightest materials of which the ship is composed) causes the temperature of the ship's cladding not to rise during penetration into the atmosphere. This is a dramatic achievement that will make space flight a much safer experience for humanity."

Virgin Galactic, owned by Sir Richard Branson, is a subsidiary of the global concern Virgin, which develops private spaceships for commercial and tourist purposes. The company is going to be the first spacecraft operator in the world for commercial space flights. The new spacecraft (VSS Enterprise) and the mother spacecraft (VMS Eve) are currently being developed for Sir Richard Branson's company Virgin Galactic by Mojave-based Scaled Composites.