SpaceShipTwo rollout....

[Dr Mordrid]

Yes kiddies, it's really real now.

SpaceShipTwo #1 rolls out Monday for her public debut at the Mojave Air and Space Port, California. Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic will then be doing captive-carry flight, drop-glide and then powered flight tests over the course of the next few months.

Over 250 civilian passengers, including physicist Stephen Hawking, have reserved rides. Initial operational flights will originate from New Mexico's Spaceport America, whose 10,000ft runway is set to be finished before summer 2010 and its unique terminal by the start of 2011.

Not only joyrides for the rich these ships will also be leased by NASA and commercial entities for microgravity experiments and astronaut training. Training advantages include a longer duration microgravity experience than the vomit comet + real world experience with riding a rocket into black skies and doing experiments in microgravity.

Once she becomes operational as the VSS Enterprise SS2 #2 will follow as the VSS Voyager, with several more to follow.

WhiteKnightTwo #1 has been christened EVE after Sir Richard Branson's mother, again with more WK2's to follow.

Besides launching SS2's they too will have NASA and commercial missions ranging from launching satellites using a horizontal-launch booster to testing spaceflight hardware for other companies. Aerospace companies are also itching to license its extremely advanced light-weight/high-strength carbon composite wing tech, the spar of which is the largest single carbon composite aerospace part in the world at 141 feet long.

Burt Rutan strikes again

More to follow....

[Evildead666]

Yaaaaay

[Dr Mordrid]

And the perfect follow-on is NASA issuing a solicitation status report for sub-orbital experimental flights...

Link....

NASA Solicitation: Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program - CRuSR - Request for Information

STATUS REPORT

Date Released: Sunday, December 6, 2009
Source: Ames Research Center
>
Description

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) recently established the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program (CRuSR) Office at Ames Research Center (ARC). NASA recognizes the significant accomplishments of the commercial reusable suborbital spaceflight industry and is contemplating two significant procurement actions: 1) A potential procurement of reusable suborbital spaceflight services, and 2) a solicitation of research investigations that will utilize those commercial reusable suborbital spaceflight services. Researchers proposing to fly investigations on these vehicles will need information about the payload environment, flight profile and potential for human participation.

In this Request for Information (RFI), the NASA Ames CRuSR Office is requesting technical and programmatic input to improve the government's understanding of flight opportunities to aid potential science investigators in scoping and designing possible future suborbital investigations.

Responses to this RFI are welcome from all interested parties, especially potential providers of suborbital spaceflight services. Suborbital spaceflight service providers should consider accommodation of flight experiments that address any of the following research disciplines:

* Astrophysics
* Earth Science
* Heliophysics
* Planetary Science
* Space Life Science
* Microgravity Science
* Fundamental Space Biology
* Atmospheric Science
* Materials Science
* Technology Development

NASA may also consider funding research in other disciplines in the future.

For experiments, it is expected that NASA's on-board payloads may require services such as power, data handling, telemetry, internal mounting surfaces, external attachments or ports, viewing portals, attitude control and pointing, day/night flight opportunities, and flight operations at remote field locations. NASA is aware that all such capabilities may not be available from every provider, but some of these capabilities may be available from each provider. NASA is interested in opportunities for externally-mounted experiments as well.
>

[Dr Mordrid]

CNN story w/Branson interview and a look at WK2 and Enterprise....

virgingalactic.com

>
The unveil itself will take place at Mojave Air and Spaceport as darkness falls on the famous aviation and spaceflight location. Subject to certain U.S. regulatory requirements that will guide the unveiling, SS2 will be attached to her WK2 mothership which was last year unveiled and named EVE after Sir Richard Branson's mother. In the future, WK2 will carry SS2 to above 50,000 feet (16 kilometres) before the spaceship is dropped and fires her rocket motor to launch into space from that altitude. In honour of a long tradition of using the word Enterprise in the naming of Royal Navy, US Navy, NASA vehicles and even science fiction spacecraft, Governor Schwarzenegger of California and Governor Richardson of New Mexico will today christen SS2 with the name Virgin Space Ship (VSS) ENTERPRISE. This represents not only an acknowledgement to that name's honorable past but also looks to the future of the role of private enterprise in the development of the exploration, industrialisation and human habitation of space.
>

Related Popular Mechanics cover story - "New Area 51: Mojave's Desert Outpost Holds Space Flight's Future"

Believe it or not, they start captive carry tests tomorrow (!)

No wasting time for these guys

VMS = Virgin Mother Ship
VSS = Virgin Space Ship

VMS Eve (WhiteKnigjhtTwo #1) and VSS Enterprise (SS2 #1- center)








Reverse view


Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites) and Sir Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic)

[Dr Mordrid]

Branson's mother sounds like quite a gal....


NBC Cosmic Log....

VSS Enterprise is emblazoned with an image of "Galactic Girl," a mascot who is modeled after Branson's mother as she looked in the 1940s, floating in zero-G. Eve Branson, who admits to being near her 90s, stopped by while we were there to look at her likeness, which was painted by a grandson, Ned Rocknroll.

"These are your belly-dancing days," Richard Branson joked.

"Could have made the boobs a little bit bigger," his mother said, grinning all the while.

"Never satisfied, never satisfied," the son replied.

Eve Branson said she was indeed satisfied, calling the likeness "marvelous" and congratulating her grandson, the artist. "Hey, if you put your grandmother on the side of a spaceship, you're all good," Ned Rocknroll said.

[Wulfman]

Rocknroll

that´s a name? for real?

mfg
wulfman

[Mehen]

Yeah, he had it legally changed to that sometime in the last few years.

[Dr Mordrid]

Times Online....

[Dr Mordrid]

Sweetness

Rollout video + flight animation + hangar walkaround....

Watch in HQ and full screen if you can.