SpaceShipTwo

Virgin Galactic has made history, becoming the first spaceliner to be certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration to carry passengers on its spaceplanes. The approval comes as the company prepares for its first fully crewed test flight.

​Virgin Galactic has shown the first firing of its spaceplane’s chemical rocket engine was no fluke, following last month’s effort with another successful outing In California. The latest test flight takes the tourist-carrying space vehicle a little closer to space, literally and figuratively.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity suborbital spacecraft took to the skies over the Mojave desert in an unpowered flight test of the ship's feather re-entry system. The glide test is the fourth independent flight of the craft designed to carry paying passengers on brief excursions to the edge of space.

Even though the investigations into the SpaceShipTwo incident are only beginning, there are those who already claim that Sir Richard Branson’s dream of sending tourists on suborbital flights into space is as dead as the Hindenburg. But is it?

Virgin Galactic has has decided which fuel will be used in the first passenger-carrying flights of its suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo. The solid fuel grains that will power the world’s largest operational hybrid rocket will be a thermoset plastic similar to nylon.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo today successfully completed its first powered flight.

SpaceShipTwo's latest test flight provided quite a spectacle with oxidizer flowing through the craft’s propulsion system and expelled through the nozzle at its rear to produce a contrail across the Mojave Desert sky.

Virgin Galactic is to SpaceshipTwo (SS2) today, bringing the company another step closer to realizing its goal of becoming the world’s first commercial space line providing private sector access to space.