Almost four years ago, a previous version of SpaceShipTwo broke apart in midair during a powered test flight, killing one of two pilots.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that the failure was caused by premature deployment of a feather system designed to help the space plane reenter Earth's atmosphere. The agency later faulted that space plane's builder, Scaled Composites, saying the design should have protected against human error.

Since then, Virgin Galactic has moved spaceplane building duties in-house and VSS Unity was built by the company's Spaceship Co., which operates at the Mojave Air & Space Port.Virgin Galactic said it devised additional safety mechanisms to prevent the feather system from being opened too early.

The company said in its Thursday blog post that its next steps will be to analyze the data from Thursday's flight, and eventually progress to full-duration rocket burns.

"While we celebrate that achievement, the team remains focused on the challenging tasks which still lie ahead," Virgin Galactic said.

Branson first publicly announced Virgin Galactic's plans in 2004, declaring that his commercial space tourism firm would launch its first flight in 2007.

But progress has been difficult.

In 2007, three Scaled Composites technicians died when a routine test related to the yet-unbuilt space plane resulted in a sudden explosion.

Then, after Virgin Galactic's 2014 accident, the company was grounded for almost two years before restarting its flight test program in September 2016.

In the meantime, other new competitors — most notably Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin — have moved into the fledgling space tourism sector, long considered a dream for individuals who were not part of a nation's astronaut corps but wanted to experience space.

Blue Origin plans to offer suborbital rides to space in its New Shepard capsule, and has already completed seven flight tests of the booster and spacecraft system.

Even Elon Musk's SpaceX has dabbled in the tourism market. In 2017, Musk announced that the Hawthorne company planned to take two paying tourists around the moon.

Virgin Galactic hasn't been the only space tourism firm to face challenges.

In November, one-time competitor Xcor Aerospace filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The company, which began as a Mojave start-up, had planned to build a space plane called the Lynx to carry tourists into space. Ultimately, Xcor underestimated the complexity and funding necessary to complete such a project.

Virgin Galactic will likely want to continue to attract more investment capital for its operations, said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at Teal Group, an aerospace and defense market analysis firm. Beyond its billionaire backing, the company landed an investment in October from Saudi Arabia's primary wealth fund.

The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and Virgin Group said at the time that the $1 billion investment would go toward Virgin Galactic, as well as the Spaceship Co. and Long Beach-based Virgin Orbit, which plans to launch small satellites from the belly of a modified commercial airliner.

"The pioneers have the potential to really get a foothold in the market, and eventually be the big players," Caceres said. "Or they have the potential to disappear all together."

Analysts said Virgin Galactic will need to continue to make careful progress to build customer confidence in its program. Caceres said the company would likely need to complete at least six more successful powered tests, in addition to other reviews, to make sure all systems are working as expected.

"My sense is that Branson isn't shy," he said. "I think he's going to proceed cautiously, but at this point, now that they have SpaceShipTwo ready to go, they're going to have to continue to push the envelope."

Quelle: Los Angeles Times

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We are delighted to report on a major step forward for Virgin Galactic today, as SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity safely and successfully completed her first supersonic, rocket-powered flight. After two years of extensive ground and atmospheric testing, the passing of this milestone marks the start of the final portion of Unity’s flight test program.

The flight was also significant for Virgin Galactic’s Mojave based, sister manufacturing organization, The Spaceship Company. Unity is the first vehicle to be built from scratch for Virgin Galactic by The Spaceship Company’s talented team of aerospace engineers and technicians. They were justifiably proud today to be a part of this compelling demonstration of their capabilities in action.

VSS Unity benefits from all the data and lessons gathered from the test program of her predecessor vehicle, VSS Enterprise. Today’s flight saw an envelope expansion for the program as a whole in terms of rocket burn duration, speed and altitude achieved.

VSS Unity took off this morning into clear Mojave skies at 8:02am with Mark “Forger” Stucky and Dave Mackay in the cockpit, attached to the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, VMS Eve,piloted today by Mike Masucci and Nicola Pecile.

The mated vehicles climbed to a launch altitude of around 46,500ft over the Sierra Nevada Mountains and while pointing back at Mojave, Eve executed a clean release of Unity. After a few seconds, Unity’s rocket motor was brought to life and the pilots aimed the spaceship upwards into an 80 degree climb, accelerating to Mach 1.87 during the 30 seconds of rocket burn. The hybrid (nitrous oxide / HTPB compound) rocket motor, which was designed, built and tested by The Spaceship Company, powered Unity today through the transonic range and into supersonic flight for the first time.

On rocket shutdown, Unity continued an upwards coast to an apogee of 84,271ft before readying for the downhill return. At this stage, the pilots raised the vehicle’s tail booms to a 60 degree angle to the fuselage, into the ‘feathered’ configuration. This unique design feature, which is key to a reliable and repeatable re-entry capability for a winged vehicle, incorporates the additional safety mechanisms adopted after the 2014 VSS Enterprise test flight accident.

At around 50,000ft,   the tail-booms were lowered again and, while jettisoning the remaining oxidizer, Unity turned towards Mojave for the glide home and a smooth runway landing.

The flight has generated valuable data on flight, motor and vehicle performance which our engineers will be reviewing. It also marks a key moment for the test flight program, entering now the exciting phase of powered flight and the expansion to full duration rocket burns. While we celebrate that achievement, the team remains focused on the challenging tasks which still lie ahead.

Congratulations to our teams at Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company for a job well done today - and in recognition of their pursuit to open space and change the world for good.