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Commercialization

SpaceShipTwo Goes Supersonic for Third Time

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 10, 2014
Filed under ,

Virgin Galactic Reaches New Heights in Third Supersonic Test Flight
“Today, Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline, which is owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi’s aabar Investments PJS, successfully completed the third rocket-powered supersonic flight of its passenger carrying reusable space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2). In command on the flight deck of SS2 for the first time under rocket power was Virgin Galactic’s Chief Pilot Dave Mackay.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

20 responses to “SpaceShipTwo Goes Supersonic for Third Time”

  1. dogstar29 says:
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    All it needs is a liquid fueled rocket engine.

    • DTARS says:
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      Why would that be better??

      • dogstar29 says:
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        Because the hybrid engine has to be taken apart (large high-pressure bulkhead) to replace the solid fuel, the cartridge igniters repoved and replaced, and the whole assembly with several critical interfaces reassembled for each launch. It’s just too expensive in terms of operating cost for a quick turn around tourist ride. And the safety advantages of hybrid propulsion are not as real as was once believed; Nitrous oxide, in large quantities, can be dangerous, as Scale Composites tragically discovered.

        The SpaceX liquid injection igniter in contrast just has to be refueled. LOX is not entirely safe but at least it is chemically stable.

        Literally hundreds of fuel combinations have been tried over the years from gunpowder to fluorine. But LOX/kerosene, the fuel of Goddard’s first liquid rocket, has, for a launch vehicle first stage at least, never really been surpassed in the overall combination of performance, cost, and safety.

      • Jackalope3000 says:
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        Everything vulture4 said, plus nitrous can act as a monopropellant in the presence of certain seal materials that under the right conditions act as catalysts. Runaway thermal decomposition is the result.

    • Jackalope3000 says:
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      I’m thinking alcohol / RP-1.

  2. John Kavanagh says:
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    In three days, it’ll have been ten years since the Vision for Space Exploration was announced. 2004 was a big year

  3. Rocky J says:
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    SS2, Virgin Galactic is very cool but its for rich cats. It will pave the way for less costly “economy seats” for the rest of us. The BBC has a story on SpaceX and launch demand from Asia. Its a big growing market for communications. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/b

    Falcon 9 has launched two Asia telecom satellites within a month to GTO. The low cost of F-9 and next, Falcon Heavy is opening the market to smaller players in telecommunications. More world communications means greater exchange of information, more knowledgeable populaces, better educated. Ultimately makes the world more prosperous and peaceful. To GTO: Falcon 9 ($10K/kg), everything else — Russian, Euro, Boeing/LMSS-ULA (>$20K/kg). Upcoming Falcon Heavy ($4K/kg). GTO is the transfer orbit needed to deliver satellites to a final Geosynchronous orbit.

    With a Falcon Heavy, two, even three GEO satellites can be launched at once. This lowers the cost per customer even more. [Ariane V does this already in order to be competitive). There can be still some space leftover. Satellite makers are preparing modules to fill the surplus volume/mass on these launches with even smaller satellites or even space probes. CubeSats to small Interplanetary Probes will “hitch rides” on Falcon Heavy launches (even on F-9s).

    • DTARS says:
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      Isn’t geosynchronous orbit the ideal place to put solar farms or nuclear generators and have energy beamed back to earth? Seems to me if launch to geo can be brought down to 5 to 7 million that such projects would be feasible. I have long thought that the most important resource in outer space is continuous sunlight and shade for heat sink. Wouldn’t it be easy to dump your nuke waste into the sun from geo??

      How soon will Virgin start flying those rich cats??? Sure would be cool to get a first hand account of what one of those flights is like from one of the passengers.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        Ho hum. Up and down. Yea, it’s cool, and you get some plastic wings, I imagine. Still, it’s not even close to a space vehicle, just a device extending the envelope of an airplane (ok, pushing it pretty far, but still). Top speed: 2,500 mph. Escape velocity: 26,000 mph.

        Forgive me but this is just an overhyped toy.

        • Steve Pemberton says:
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          It’s the equivalent of an X-15 ride. Seems pretty exciting to me but if it bores you, well to each his own.

          Of course whether people get goosebumps or not isn’t the important thing, what is significant is that this marks the beginning of what will hopefully be a sustainable space tourism industry (The tourist flights to ISS were also significant but were very limited). Now whether the pool of rich thrill seekers will dry up after most of them have checked it off their bucket list, or whether the pool will increase if (hopefully) prices come down remains to be seen. And certainly it will be even better if this leads to eventual orbital tourist flights (maybe a few orbits à la John Glenn) and then tourist visits of several days to an orbital habitat, and then flights around the Moon, and then landing on the Moon, and then …..

          Gotta start somewhere

          • DTARS says:
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            Time to fly a thought rocket.
            Strato launch
            Couldn’t an orbital launch vehicle be designed something like this.Similar to virgins launch stack you have a winged dual fuselage booster that lifts your space plane/second stage crew capsule or plane to space. You have three Merlin’s on board plus jet engines under your wings. The duel fuselages are full of fuel. With a merlin on the back of each fuselage.

            Your jet engines carry you high at jets will go. Perhaps you even fire your rockets a few seconds to get you off the runway. Your three rockets fire as your jets crap out. The center rocket is part orbit vehicle or second stage so it remains lit from launch to orbit.The two engines on the fuselages burn till staging. Like falcon heavy the fuselage tanks cross plump with second stage living it full at staging. After stagingvthe orbit vehicle/ second stage and capsule or crew cabin goes on to orbit. The fuselage plane uses same tail slowing rentree that virgin uses till slow and low enough to use its engines to fly back to runway.

            Just seems to me horizontal launch with wings and jets could be used to reduce fuel and size making launch to Leo cheaper and safer than even spacex falcon Rs

        • Vladislaw says:
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          you know that is EXACTLY what they said about automobiles, mobile phones, telescopes and many more, UNTIL the price came down enough for the masses to enjoy it.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            ok, OK! I know how to take my lumps! Still. It was cool when Chuck Yaeger did it. In fact when he did it he had a hell of a lot less tech.

            Now? It is a road to nowhere, and not comparable to cars. Up and down. Fine. You can see space!

            Will I go? Sure. After that rich uncle dies…But how does it move the ball forward? How does it get humanity into space? It’s like scuba diving when we really need to live in the Marianas Trench. Scuba is fun in its own right, sure. And SS1is a side show in the larger picture.

            Maybe reports on just how cool it is will spur real space. Dunno.

          • Steve Pemberton says:
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            “Maybe reports on just how cool it is will spur real space.”

            Hopefully so, but just to clarify in case it’s not clear, SpaceShipTwo will in fact be carrying passengers into space. Space is officially defined by the FAI as 100km (62 miles), and SpaceShipTwo is expected to reach 110km (68 miles). Passengers aboard SpaceShipTwo will experience what all astronauts experience – a radical rocket ride on the way up with g forces similar to a Soyuz launch, a pitch black sky, weightlessness, and looking down on the Earth from extremely high altitude. The big difference of course is duration, as they will be in space for only about five minutes, compared to ISS astronauts who go “nowhere” (to use your terminology) for a much longer period of time. So you can think of it as a space “sampler” if you will. And the view from 68 miles won’t be quite the same as it is from 250 miles, but it will certainly be more impressive than 8 miles which is about as high as you will likely go in a commercial airliner. Even Concorde maxed out at around 11 miles.

            Chuck Yeager by the way never went into space as he never flew the X-15, although he certainly went pretty fast during his career. Eight X-15 pilots went above 50 miles which is the U.S. Air Force designation for space, the five Air Force pilots who did so were in fact awarded astronaut wings. However only one X-15 pilot (Joe Walker) went above 100km which he did on two separate occasions.

      • Rocky J says:
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        GEO would be good for transmitting back energy but I’ve never fancied the idea of these mega solar panels sending down beams of microwaves that suddenly go on tilt and cook a whole town in 5 minutes, browning bag not included. I’d rather we continue using desert areas in the southwest. Use mag-lev flywheels, latent heat storage, etc., etc. to get through the nights.

        Waste nuclear materials amount to so much mass that it would be extremely costly to launch and then overcome Earth’s and then the Sun’s gravity to deorbit it – spiraling into the Sun. Even just some safe solar orbit – way too costly. 10s of thousand of tons of waste nuclear fuel and then byproducts of nuclear reactions and waste liquids even greater. Imagine how many rockets would be required. Its hard enough getting a simple Radioactive Thermal Generator (RTG) on say, Cassini, lifted off without lawsuits and protesters. Imagine that rockets would fail, crashing waste back to Earth.

        Rich Cats in Space – before the end of 2014. We’ll certainly start hearing full accountings of their experiences. Mega-money and egos often go hand-in-hand. I do not know if Stephen Hawkings still plans on going. He is pretty frail. He would have to pre-program his computer with first account remarks. Hmmm. On the other hand, you have a variety of artists – Lady Gaga that are going, that are very expressive.

        Does Stephen read Nasawatch? Stephen, are you still going up on SS2? Silence. I didn’t think so.

      • Paul451 says:
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        Wouldn’t it be easy to dump your nuke waste into the sun from geo??

        The delta-v to launch something to escape velocity is 1.4 times orbital velocity. The delta-v to dump it into the sun is minus-1 times. So if you wanted to go from orbit to throwing it out of the solar system, it is a 40% change in velocity. To drop it into the sun is a 100% change in velocity.

        (Or for Earth: Solar escape = 12 km/s, Sun drop = 30 km/s.)

    • Vladislaw says:
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      Lowering launch demand. That is why I believe human cargo is going to be the catalyst that will help bring the high flight rates we need. Cargo launches to support humans in space …
      “That’s the ticket laddie” – Scotty.

  4. Vladislaw says:
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    There are going to be only a few selling points for Suborbital, How high, how much room to play, cost.
    I really do not care about Virgin except that I hope they make just totally insane profits.
    I want this to be the catalyst that spurs capital to come flooding into this market to compete for those costumers.
    All this is is SUBORBITAL 1.0 but lets hope it will lead to many more new ones.