By 
February 19th, 2016
Virgin Spaceship Unity is unveiled in Mojave, California, Friday February 19th, 2016.
Credit: VG/Mark Greenberg
MOJAVE, California – Some 16 months after the mishap of SpaceShipTwo breaking up over the desert here and killing one of its two-person, test piloting crew, a new SpaceShipTwo has been rolled out.
It is the first vehicle to be manufactured by The Spaceship Company, Virgin Galactic’s wholly owned manufacturing arm.
VSS Unity was unveiled here at the Final Assembly Integration Test Hangar (FAITH).
Test dates
Noted astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, named the new vehicle Virgin Spaceship (VSS) Unity via a recorded speech.
With VSS Unity now fully manufactured and rolled out today, The Spaceship Company is set to undertake integrated systems verification, followed by ground and flight tests in Mojave and ground and air exercises at its future home in Spaceport America, New Mexico.
Company officials were tentative to discuss specific dates of future tests leading to commercial public space travel.
Pressing forward
It was announced here that The Spaceship Company has already started work on the next SpaceShipTwo.
Despite the Oct. 31, 2014 loss of SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic’s founder, Sir Richard Branson, vowed to press forward on building the world’s first commercial spaceline.
Leap of FAITH taken by Richard Branson.
Credit: Jack Brockway
Branson said that after the accident, he was touched by messages that gave the company a very clear direction when it came to choosing a name for their next spaceship.
“And thanks to one message in particular I knew without a doubt who I was going to ask to name her. That message came from the great man himself who never ceases to amaze and inspire us all,” Branson said.
Space: a great unifier
The voice of Stephen Hawking boomed through the hangar, including an image of his eye projected on overhead screens. In part, he said:
“We are entering a new space age and I hope, this will help to create a new unity. Space exploration has already been a great unifier – we seem able to cooperate between nations in space in a way we can only envy on Earth. Taking more and more passengers out into space will enable them and us to look both outwards and back, but with a fresh perspective in both directions. It will help bring new meaning to our place on Earth and to our responsibilities as its stewards, and it will help us to recognize our place and our future in the cosmos – which is where I believe our ultimate destiny lies.”
Posted in Space News
