Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- The rocket, dubbed SpaceShipTwo, reached an altitude of 51 miles on Thursday.
- Virgin Galactic hopes to soon transport space tourists into the atmosphere on the rocket.
- The successful test is a landmark for Virgin Galactic, which has seen its fair share of setbacks since it was founded in 2004.
In a successful test of what Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson hopes will be “the world’s first commercial spaceline,” the company launched a spacecraft 51 miles above California’s Mojave Desert on Thursday.
That altitude qualifies as space, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s definition.
The spacecraft, known as SpaceShipTwo, was ferried by a mothership to an altitude of 43,000 feet. Then it was released, falling freely until one of the two pilots ignited the engine, rocketing the ship nearly straight upward into the mesosphere at Mach 2.9 (2,225 mph). The ship then began its gliding descent back to ground, landing on a runway and ending the approximately 20-minute test.
“Space is Virgin territory!” Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson told the pilots after they…
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