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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Fnord666:

Virgin Galactic's spaceship flies from its new home base for the first time:

The pieces are finally starting to come together for Virgin Galactic's space tourism — the company has flown SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America for the first time. It was just a glide test from 50,000 feet up, but the flight let the spaceport fulfill its intended purpose and gave pilots familiarity with the New Mexico airspace. This will also help Virgin compare performance against similar maneuvers from earlier tests.

From https://www.geekwire.com/2020/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-makes-first-gliding-test-flight-new-mexico/ we read:

Unity was carried to a height of 50,000 feet by its WhiteKnightTwo mothership, VMS Eve, and then released to glide back to the spaceport's runway. Virgin Galactic said Unity achieved a glide speed of Mach 0.70 and completed all test objectives with pilots Dave Mackay and CJ Sturckow at the controls. Michael Masucci and Kelly Latimer piloted Eve.

Further test flights will clear the way for passengers to start flying suborbital space trips as early as this year. More than 600 customers from 60 countries have paid as much as $250,000 for a reservation, and Virgin Galactic resumed taking deposits for trips in February.

Original Submission