Unity successfully completes its first glide flight
Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo, Unity, yesterday successfully completed its first glide test flight.
SpaceShipTwo, named VSS Unity, and its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California at about 9:50 a.m. Eastern. The spaceplane separated from WhiteKnightTwo at 10:40 a.m. Eastern, gliding back to a runway landing in Mojave ten minutes later, according to updates provided by the company.
Congratulations to Virgin Galactic. They need to start making these flights quickly and frequently, and they need to ramp up to powered flight, to quash the skepticism that has built up about the company and its effort. More important, they need to do this because, unlike a decade ago, they are no longer the only game in town. They now have some serious competition.
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Brief video (extremely brief…)
VSS Unity
12-3-16
https://youtu.be/QMORvjo-n1I
>They need to hire the people that manage all of SpaceX’s Video-PR,– looked briefly at their website and no video’s.
What can I say– I’m a “TV-Baby,” and I know people-in-general, like good pictures & video.
Related because its about technology and this is big tech / construction, and I do not have any other place to post this. Very impressive:
https://youtu.be/sX-DCIyDeLo
Not ‘The competition heats up.’?
Blair: I will only consider Virgin Galactic a serious competitor when they finally do a powered flight test with Unity. This company has had more than a dozen years to develop this suborbital tourist vehicle, and have so far failed to do it. Moreover, I have enough information to suggest that they still haven’t solved their engine issues.
Thus, this flight heats nothing up, from my perspective. It is good they are finally moving forward, but I simply don’t take them that seriously at this point.
Cool vids Wayne and Cotour, I am as skeptical as Robert about virgin galactics progress and am not sure that they will figure out an engine solution, but it is all experimental and maybe……