SpaceShipTwo

SpaceShipTwo
SpaceShipTwo (center) attached to the White Knight Two carrier aircraft
Type:	suborbital spaceplane
Design country:	United States
Manufacturer:	The Spaceship Company
First flight:	March 23, 2010 (with carrier aircraft) October 10, 2010 (gliding) April 29, 2013 (with engine ignition)
Commissioning:	planned
Production time:	since 2010
Number of pieces:	2 (one destroyed)

Maiden flight of VMS Eve on December 21, 2008

SpaceShipTwo is a private, is located Direction in developing space aircraft manufacturer's The Spaceship Company , a former joint venture of the company Virgin Group and Scaled Composites , since 2012 a wholly owned subsidiary of Virgin Galactic .

The spaceplane was to perform suborbital space flights from 2015 and later be used for space tourism. On October 31, 2014, the prototype VSS Enterprise crashed during a test flight and was destroyed, with one of the two pilots dying. On February 20, 2016, the successor model, the VSS Unity, was officially presented in the Mojave Air & Space Port . On December 13, 2018, the VSS Unity first reached space as defined by the FAA .

development

Look under SpaceShipTwo and White Knight

SpaceShipTwo is the successor to the SpaceShipOne type , the first privately financed spacecraft that reached space twice within two weeks as part of the Ansari X-Prize . Construction and development was largely done by Burt Rutan , who is also a co-owner of Virgin Galactic.

Virgin's CEO Richard Branson wanted to invest about $ 100 million in the construction over the next few years. Among other things, over $ 20 million in licensing rights went to Mojave Aerospace Ventures (MAV), a company founded by Rutan and Paul Allen to commercialize SpaceShipOne technology.

The rollout of the first SpaceShipTwo (name " VSS Enterprise ", aircraft registration number N339SS) took place on December 7, 2009. A first test flight from Mojave Air & Space Port in California, during which the spacecraft was not yet released from the carrier aircraft, took place on March 23 2010. The first manned flight of the spacecraft took place on July 15, also without decoupling. During the 37th test flight of the “VMS Eve” carrier aircraft, its left landing gear broke off, so that the carrier aircraft was slightly damaged. The first free flight of the VSS Enterprise took place on October 10, 2010.

On May 4, 2011, during the 7th free flight, the so-called spring mode (see section flight sequence) was successfully tested over the Mojave Air & Space Port.

In June 2012, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved Scaled Composites for missile testing. The first test flight of SpaceShipTwo with rocket propulsion took place on April 29, 2013, the second on September 5, 2013.

Tourist flights should be operated from 2015. Approval by the FAA was still pending in February 2014, as not all of the required test flights had been carried out by then. About 700 passengers had already paid for a plane ticket. A second spacecraft of the SpaceShipTwo class is also planned, which will be named " VSS Voyager ".

On October 31, 2014, problems arose during a test flight of the VSS Enterprise a few seconds after the solid-fuel rocket of the hybrid drive had ignited. The space plane crashed over the Mojave Desert . The copilot, Michael Alsbury, died in this accident, the pilot, Peter Siebold , survived with serious injuries.

Test flights

flight	date	Duration	height	Top speed	Pilot / copilot	annotation
41 / GF01	Oct 10, 2010	13 min	14,000 m	333 km / h (180 kn) EAS	Siebold / Alsbury	first glide, success
44 / GF02	Oct 28, 2010	10 min 51 s	?	426 km / h (230 kn) EAS	Stucky / Alsbury	success
45 / GF03	17th Nov 2010	11 min 39 s	?	456 km / h (246 kn) EAS	Siebold / Nichols	success
47 / GF04	Jan 13, 2011	11 min 34 s	?	463 km / h (250 kn) EAS	Stucky / Nichols	success
56 / GF05	April 22, 2011	14 min 31 s	?	?	Siebold / Shane	success
57 / GF06	April 27, 2011	16 min 7 s	?	?	Stucky / Alsbury	success
58 / GF07	May 4, 2011	11 min 5 s	15,700 m	?	Siebold / Nichols	first test of the spring mode flight, success
59 / GF08	May 10, 2011	13 min 2 s	?	?	Stucky / Shane	success
60 / GF09	May 19, 2011	11 min 32 s	?	?	Siebold / Binnie	success
61 / GF10	May 25, 2011	10 min 14 s	over 15,000 m	?	Stucky / Binnie	success
64 / GF11	June 14, 2011	13 min 18 s	?	?	Siebold / Shane	success
65 / GF12	June 15, 2011	10 min 32 s	?	?	Stucky / Nichols	success
66 / GF13	June 21, 2011	8 min 55 s	?	?	Siebold / Nichols	success
67 / GF14	June 23, 2011	7 min 33 s	?	?	Stucky / Nichols	success
68 / GF15	June 27, 2011	7 min 39 s	?	?	Siebold / Binnie	success
73 / GF16	Sept 29, 2011	7 min 15 s	?	?	Stucky / Nichols	unintentional stall at the stern
115 / PF01	April 29, 2013	13 min	17,130 m	Mach 1.22	Stucky / Alsbury	first rocket-propelled flight, success
132 / PF02	5th September 2013		14,000 m	Mach 1.43	Stucky / Nichols	First test of the spring mode flight from SS2 after flight with its own engine, success
147 / PF03	January 10, 2014	12 min 43 s	22,000 m	Mach 1.4	Siebold / Masucci	success
150 / GF29	29th July 2014				Stucky / Mackay	success
?? / GF33?	August 28, 2014				Siebold / Alsbury	success
?? / PF04	October 31, 2014				Siebold / Alsbury †	crash
	3rd December 2016	10 min	15,200 m	Mach 0.6	Stucky / Mackay	first glide, success
GFxx = gliding
PFxx = flight with engine ignition

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Planned flight sequence in regular operation

Flight profile

The carrier aircraft White Knight Two is to take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico , carry the spaceplane up to 15.2 km and release it there. After a few seconds of unpowered flight, the rocket engine of the SpaceShipTwo ignites and accelerates it on a steeply upward path up to Mach 3 within thirty seconds. The occupants are accelerated up to three times the acceleration of gravity . After about two minutes and at about 4200 km / h, the engine is switched off.

This is followed by a weightless , suborbital flight lasting about four to five minutes , during which the SpaceShipTwo first ascends further in a ballistic curve and then descends. At the highest point, the flight path is about 110 km above the earth's surface, in the thermosphere , beyond the space limit of 100 km specified by the FAI . There are portholes between 33 and 43 cm in size available to passengers.

Thereafter a nearly two minutes permanent brakes follows the descent in the spring mode ( feather configuration ), a defined stall , which is caused by a 90 ° rotation of the two tail boom including the tail upwards. At an altitude of 16,700 m, the tail girders are turned back and the aircraft goes into gliding flight. It lands at its home airport 25 to 50 minutes later.

technology

According to the designer Rutan, SpaceShipTwo should fly higher and, at 100 to 200 miles, have a longer downrange (descent) phase than its predecessor SpaceShipOne. With a length of 18.3 m, it is almost twice as large and made entirely of carbon fiber reinforced plastic. To brake and stabilize the fall at great heights, the rear wings with the tail units can be pneumatically swiveled upwards so that - as with the predecessor - a defined spin occurs. The leading edges of the wing and the bow are equipped with heat protection.

The maximum number of passengers is six, the spaceship is piloted by two pilots. Test pilot Dave MacKay and chief electronaut Steve Johnson were named as pilots for the spaceship .

drive

As with SpaceShipOne, a hybrid rocket engine is used as the drive . It consists of a tube made of solid plastic that burns as fuel and the gaseous nitrous oxide (laughing gas, N ₂ O) supplied from a tank as an oxidizer .

In October 2013, the start of flight operations was postponed indefinitely. The reason was considered to be significant problems with the SpaceShipTwo drive. Up to this point in time, the engines had never been tested for the full required runtime, and according to unconfirmed information, they did not achieve the necessary thrust either.

The CO ₂ emissions per passenger for a flight in regular operation would correspond to around 60 percent of the emissions of a transatlantic flight between New York and London. About 70 percent of the emissions would come from the carrier aircraft that SpaceShipTwo would carry into the stratosphere.

Accident during engine tests

On July 26, 2007, during ground tests on the further developed rocket engine, a powerful explosion occurred, in which three technicians were killed and three other technicians were seriously injured. The state health and safety agency OSHA in California investigated the accident, but could not determine the direct cause of the explosion until January 2008. Scaled then put together its own investigation team of experienced rocket engineers to investigate the process and rule out similar incidents in the future. The cause is suspected to be an incompatibility between nitrous oxide (N ₂ O) and composite materials, which led to the ignition in the tank. Modified materials should then be used. However, objections to SpaceShipTwo's security concept continued to be raised.

Spacecraft

Five SpaceShipTwo-class ships were planned. Only two were named in October 2007 and are currently being developed, the VSS Enterprise and the VSS Unity. The VSS Enterprise crashed on October 31, 2014 and crashed to the ground, VSS Unity was unveiled on February 19, 2016.

	Surname	Carrier aircraft	Construction year	Current status 1
1	VSS Enterprise	VMS Eve	2010	destroyed in 2014
2	VSS Unity	VMS Eve VMS Spirit of Steve Fossett (planned)	2016	In test mode

¹ Data as of December 14, 2018

On September 9, 2016, the VSS Unity carried out the first successful test flight during which it remained connected to the carrier aircraft; the first glide flight took place on December 3, 2016.

Technical specifications

Parameter	Data
crew	2
Passengers	≤ 6
length	18.29 m
span	8.23 m
height	4.57 m
Length of the cabin	3.70 m
Top speed	4200 km / h
drive	RocketMotorTwo (adjustable and disengageable rocket engine)
control	Attitude control thrusters, electrically assisted elevator
Service ceiling	110 km (140 km with fewer passengers)

Web links

Commons : SpaceShipTwo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• SpaceShipTwo on the website of Spaceship Company (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Virgin Galactic Aquire full ownership of The Spaceship Company. The Spaceship Company, October 5, 2012, accessed February 21, 2016 . 
2. ^ First Flight of Virgin Galactic's Spaceshiptwo Delayed again , spaceflightinsider.com from September 13, 2014
3. ↑ Space tourism: Virgin Galactic presents new SpaceShipTwo. Spiegel Online, February 20, 2016, accessed February 20, 2016 . 
4. ^ FAA Registry
5. ^ SpaceShipTwo Roll Out. Virgin Galactic, December 8, 2009; archived from the original on December 13, 2009 ; Retrieved December 8, 2009 . 
6. ↑ SpaceShipTwo makes maiden flight. Focus, March 23, 2010, accessed March 23, 2010 . 
7. ↑ VSS Enterprise Makes First Crewed Flight. In: aviationnews.eu. Virgin Galactic, accessed July 17, 2010 . 
8. ↑ Accident carrier aircraft damaged by SpaceShipTwo. heise.de, accessed on September 9, 2010 . 
9. ↑ SpaceShipTwo makes first free flight. Flieger-Revue, October 11, 2010, archived from the original on November 11, 2011 ; Retrieved October 12, 2010 . 
10. ↑ SpaceShipTwo for the first time in "Federflug" raumfahrer.net
11. ↑ Virgin Galactic reaches key milestone in latest test flight . Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2011, Retrieved May 11, 2011, archived on May 7, 2011.
12. ^ SpaceShipTwo Supersonic Flight , September 5, 2013
13. ↑ Glen Ridge resident helping to launch commercial spaceflight , NorthJersey.com dated November 21, 2013, archived November 24, 2013
14. ↑ Peter Walker, Jon Ronson: Richard Branson insists he will be aboard first Virgin Galactic space flight. Branson says SpaceShip Two will enter service this year - with him and his children aboard - despite unproven technology. In: The Guardian. February 21, 2014, archived from the original on June 25, 2014 ; accessed on February 27, 2014 (English). 
15. ↑ Pilot killed in crash spaceship Identified . USA Today, November 1, 2014
16. ↑ Private space travel: “SpaceShipTwo” crashes during a test flight - one dead. On: spiegel-online.de from October 31, 2014.
17. ↑ Virgin Galactic flexes SpaceShip Two's unique feather mechanism in second supersonic flight. Virgin Galactic, September 5, 2013; archived from the original on November 4, 2013 ; accessed on November 3, 2013 . 
18. ^ Virgin Galactic Reaches New Heights in Third Supersonic Test Flight . In: virgingalactic.com . January 10, 2014. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
19. ↑ SpaceShipTwo Resumes Test Flights . July 30, 2014. Accessed July 31, 2014.
20. ↑ Virgin galactics spaceshipt two glides through dry run . August 28, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2014.
21. ↑ "SpaceShip Two" explodes over the desert . Berliner Morgenpost, November 1, 2014.
22. ↑ Deadly spaceship explosion rattles budding industry . The Washington Post, October 31, 2014.
23. ^ SpaceShipTwo Test Summaries. Scaled Composites, archived from the original on January 31, 2018 ; accessed on January 12, 2012 . 
24. ^ ^{A b} Virgin Galactic: Update from Mojave: Successful First Glide Flight Test for VSS Unity. December 3, 2016, accessed May 22, 2017 . 
25. ↑ Virgin Galactic unveils Dyna-Soar style SpaceShipTwo design and twin-fuselage White Knight II configuration. Flightglobal.com, January 23, 2008, accessed December 8, 2009 . 
26. ↑ Cosmic Log: Space federation lifts off , August 22, 2006
27. ↑ FlugRevue 5/2008, pp. 92–95, "Airline into space"
28. ↑ Avionews: The future SpaceShipTwo project details ( Memento from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), May 12, 2008 (English)
29. ↑ heise.de: Private manned space flight: Virgin Galactic postpones maiden flight , October 2, 2013
30. ^ Scientificamerican: Can Space Travel Be Environmentally Friendly? May 27, 2009
31. ^ Scaled Composites Releases Update on Accident Investigation . Parabolic Arc, August 3, 2008.
32. ↑ Branson spaceship explosion: The 'missed' warnings. On: The Telegraph. London. November 1, 2014.
33. ^ Richard Branson Unveils Virgin Galactic's New Spaceship Named VSS UNITY By Professor Stephen Hawking - Virgin Galactic. In: Virgin Galactic. Retrieved April 13, 2016 (American English). 
34. ^ Update from Mojave: VSS Unity's First Flight Test Completed. In: Virgin Galactic. Retrieved September 25, 2016 (American English).