Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Virgin Spaceship Unity (VSS Unity) touches down after flying freely for the first time after being released from Virgin Mothership Eve (VMS Eve) on December 3, 2016 in the Mojave Desert.
Credit: Virgin Galactic

The sky above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California on December 3 was the site of Virgin Galactic’s first drop test of Spaceship Unity (VSS Unity).

VSS Unity’s test flight also marks the first time that a vehicle built by Virgin Galactic’s sister organization — The Spaceship Company — has flown fully under its own control.

VSS Unity was piloted by Mark Stucky and Dave Mackay, with pilots Mike Masucci and Todd Ericsson as well as flight test engineer Dustin Mosher in the WhiteKnightTwo drop plane.

Light and slow

For this initial glide test flight, VSS Unity was flying “light and slow,” achieving a maximum speed of approximately Mach 0.6 while gliding home from an altitude of 50,000 feet.

Virgin Spaceship Unity (VSS Unity) glides for the first time after being released from Virgin Mothership Eve (VMS Eve) over the Mojave Desert on 3rd, December 3, 2016.
Credit: Virgin Galactic

The one hour 20 minute flight, particularly the 10 minutes of free flight for SpaceShipTwo, permitted “our pilots, mission controllers, and ground crew collected valuable data,” noted a Virgin Galactic press statement.

An initial look at the data as well as feedback from VSS Unit’s two pilots indicate that the flight went extremely well, according to Virgin Galactic, “but we’ll take the time to properly and thoroughly analyze the vehicle’s performance before clearing the vehicle for our next test.”

Back to the skies

The December 3 test flight was the fifth flight of VSS Unity (and the 218th flight of WhiteKnightTwo), following several recent Captive Carry flights, in which the spaceship remains attached to the mothership.

Saturday morning’s glide flight was the first of many.

“We have not yet reached the rocket powered phase of the test flight program…first we need to gather test flight data to confirm our analyses and calculations about how VSS Unity will perform in a wide variety of real-world flight conditions,” explains the Virgin Galactic statement.

Virgin Galactic’s founder Sir Richard Branson and George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company, congratulate Chief Pilot Dave Mackay and Test Pilot Mark Stucky after first glide flight of Virgin Spaceship Unity (VSS Unity) in Mojave Desert on December 3, 2016.
Credit: Virgin Galactic

“We’re looking forward to getting back into the skies as soon as the engineers say we are ready to do so,” concludes the Virgin Galactic press statement.

2014 mishap

The first drop test of the craft comes after a major mishap involving a SpaceShipTwo vehicle back in October 2014.

That incident was caused by premature deployment of the craft’s feather reentry tail section during powered flight. That mistake lead to breakup of the vehicle and death of the craft’s co-pilot,  Michael Alsbury, with the pilot, Peter Siebold, receiving severe injuries. He successfully deployed his parachute after the craft disintegrated in the air.

The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo/WhiteKnightTwo system is intended to offer commercial, pay-per-view suborbital flight to the edge of space, with tourists departing and landing at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

For video and imagery of the drop test, go to:

http://www.image.net/virgingalactic