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Virgin’s Spacecraft Makes Flight Debut

DUBAI — The dream of rocketing passengers into space for a zero gravity experience became closer to reality on Monday when Virgin Galactic’s mother ship and rocket plane took to the skies on a maiden test flight over California’s Mojave Desert.

Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company owned by billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments, said with the successful test debut, it expected the first commercial passenger flight to start by 2011.

“The captive-carry flight signifies the start of what we believe will be extremely exciting and successful spaceship flight test programme,” said Burt Rutan, founder of Scaled Composites, which built the spacecraft.

The carrier aircraft, called White Knight Two, resembles a flying catamaran because of its two fuselages. The six-passenger rocket plane is named VSS Enterprise. During the test debut, VSS Enterprise remained attached to its carrier aircraft throughout the two-hour, 54-minute flight.

The mother ship is designed to release the spacecraft at 50,000 feet. The craft’s engine then burns to rocket it to more than 65 miles above the Earth’s surface to reach the brink of space when passengers can experience five minutes of weightlessness.

Monday’s test debut happened much earlier than expected. Early this month, Will Whitehorn, President of Virgin Galactic, said in Dubai that the test flight would debut in 2011.

Already, some 330 space enthusiasts, including 20 Gulf Arabs, have bought tickets priced at $200,000 for the two-and-a-half-hour flight to 100 kilometres above Earth space to explore zero gravity experience. Virgin Galactic has so far collected $45 million in deposits for spaceflight reservations. Those who booked for suborbital odyssey include physicist Stephen Hawkins and ex-racing driver Niki Lauda.

Aabar bought a 32 per cent stake in Virgin Galactic for $280 million in July 2009. The partnership seeks to position Abu Dhabi as a hub for commercial flights into space with Aabar planning to construct “spaceport” facilities in the capital. Aabar has committed $100 million to fund a small satellite launch capability.

The space tourism project, with a $450 million budget, would see the construction of six commercial spaceships that would take passengers high enough to achieve weightlessness and see the curvature of Earth set against the backdrop of space.

Virgin Galactic’s $450 million space tourism project envisages the construction of six suborbital spaceships that can take passengers high enough to achieve weightlessness and see the Earth set against the backdrop of space.

“Watching VSS Enterprise fly for the first time really brings home what beautiful, ground-breaking vehicles Burt and his team have developed for us,” Branson said in a statement.

“It comes as no surprise that the flight went so well,” he said. “Today was another major step along that road and a testament to the US engineering and innovation.”

Test flights are scheduled through 2011, with commercial operations targeted to begin in 2012.

· issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com