FAA-AST Awards Virgin Galactic Operator License For SpaceShipTwo
“The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA-AST) has awarded Virgin Galactic an operator license for SpaceShipTwo. The license award, which will ultimately permit commercial operations of the vehicle, was the culmination of several years of in-depth interaction with the FAA. The license review process consists of an in-depth review of the vehicles system design, safety analysis and flight trajectory analysis, culminating in FAA-AST approval.”
Virgin Galactic receives FAA license for SpaceShipTwo tests, SpaceNews
“The license prohibits Virgin Galactic from flying what are officially classified as “spaceflight participants” on SpaceShipTwo until the company can “successfully verify the integrated performance” of SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo. “Verification must include flight testing, and the results must be provided to the FAA prior to conducting a mission with a space flight participant on board,” the license states.
Virgin Galactic opted to receive the launch license, with those restrictions, over an alternative known as an experimental permit. Such permits allow for testing of suborbital reusable launch vehicles under a more streamlined regulatory environment, but prohibit the company holding the permit from using the vehicle for any commercial application. Blue Origin, for example, has an experimental permit for test flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle.”

Marc Boucher is an entrepreneur, writer, editor, podcaster and publisher who has worked in space media for more than 25 years. In 1999 he co-founded SpaceRef with Keith Cowing. The new media company grew into a network that included NASA Watch and The Astrobiology Web. After selling SpaceRef, he joined Multiverse Media, which later merged with SpaceNews. There he helped steer the combined company toward more multimedia, a subscription paywall and intelligence products, and pushed for a mobile app. He is also the founder of SpaceQ Media, Canada’s space news and market intelligence publication.

Marc started his first Internet content business in 1992 and hasn’t looked back. When he’s not working, he loves exploring Canada and the world and expanding his photography skills.

4 replies on “Virgin Galactic Gets Operator License For SpaceShipTwo”

  1. Now all they need is to finish their flight program, which will probably take 2-3 years…

    Really with the progress Blue Origin and SpaceX have made VG now seems like ancient history.

      1. Although realistically it is an airplane, albeit an extreme high-performance aircraft, capable of high-speed, high-altitude flight and also capable of flinging itself via inertia to the edge of space, providing its tourist passengers a few minutes of what can marginally be referred to as spaceflight.

        To your point, Branson may have done better going with a capsule instead of an airplane. I think there is an emotional draw to airplanes as perhaps feeling safer, but for this type of “flying” the opposite is true and I think a capsule is safer. Any aircraft at extreme speeds is at constant risk of breakup if it gets crossways in the airflow, as occurred in the one fatal X-15 accident and both Space Shuttle accidents. And of course the fatal accident of SpaceShipTwo. All of these accidents had different root causes, but in all cases the ultimate destruction of the vehicles was due to aerodynamic forces which the airframes could not handle.

        Not that there isn’t a risk in riding a capsule at high speed and altitudes, but I think the complexity of dealing with an aircraft with a built-in rocket motor, and having to make it safe enough to carry passengers at high-speed and high-altitudes, is one reason this project has taken so long.

  2. I’ve wondered about the ‘flutter’ technique to slow and stabilize a high-speed vessel. Is this just a trick with limited use, or is it truly a creative and radical different approach?

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