from the timing-of-actual-passenger-service-is-up-in-the-air dept.
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.
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Branson to sell part of Virgin Galactic stake
Richard Branson, the founder and largest shareholder of suborbital spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, will sell more than a fifth of Virgin Group's majority stake in the company to raise funds to aid its other companies affected by the pandemic.
In a statement May 11, the company announced that Vieco 10, the Virgin Group holding company that owns the majority of Virgin Galactic, planned to sell up to 25 million shares, accounting for about 22% of its overall stake in the company. That sale would generate $485 million for Virgin at the price of $19.40 per share at the close of trading May 11.
Virgin Group said the sale of stock, the company said in a statement and in its S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), was "to support its portfolio of global leisure, holiday and travel businesses that have been affected by the unprecedented impact of COVID-19."
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Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Flies from its New Home Base for the First Time
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday May 05 2020, @10:44PM (1 child)
I will believe it when I see it.
Founded in 2004 Branson still hasn't managed to get anything into orbit, despite promising a maiden flight for 2009, 11 years ago now.
Sub-orbital flights seem like a pretty unambitious goal considering they've been at it for 16 years.
Anyway, Branson has run out of money, and needs the taxpayers of the UK to fund his lifestyle now that the corona virus has killed his business. [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 06 2020, @12:04AM
"Dick" goes brrrrrr [telegraph.co.uk]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday May 06 2020, @12:01AM (2 children)
Branson should team with Jeff Bezos and his Vanity Project, “Blue Origin” 😂 Together, they can sit in a room masturbating while watching Elon Musk smoke weed while launching humans into space.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday May 06 2020, @12:02AM
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05/blue-origin-orbital-arena/ [nasaspaceflight.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 06 2020, @01:43AM
Dave Mackay and CJ Sturckow will retire one day. They'll be overheard, "We should have applied with Elon's outfit. We probably would have gotten into space if we did."
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz