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GN38618EN

SPACE

Virgin Galactic aims to reach space with tourist rocket

By Jordi Bou

December 14, 2018 - Virgin Galactic has taken its first trip to the edge of space, a major step toward the long-awaited dream of commercial space tourism.

The latest test of the company’s space plane is scheduled to take it to a height of more than 80 kilometres — the altitude at which space begins, according to the U.S. military and NASA. However, it will still fall short of the 100km — or 62 mile — Karman line, the notional point that many others see as the limit of earth’s atmosphere.

Reaching the threshold of space would demonstrate significant progress toward the start of commercial flights that were promised more than a decade ago. Virgin Galactic’s development of its spaceship took far longer than expected and endured a setback when the first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot.

More than 600 people have committed up to $250,000 for rides in the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. They have been waiting years to feel the kick of the rocket’s ignition, a near-vertical high-speed ascent into the blackness of space and several minutes of weightlessness with a view of the Earth far below.

The spaceship isn’t launched from the ground but is carried beneath a mothership named White Knight Two. It then detaches from the plane, ignites its rocket engine and climbs. The rocket is shut down and the craft coasts to the top of its climb — and then begins a descent slowed and stabilized by unique “feathering” technology. The twin tails temporarily rotate upward to increase drag, then return to a normal flying configuration before the craft glides to a landing on a runway.

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is in a race with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin is also hoping to launch the first space tourism service, and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX hopes to become the first private company to put a human into space.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 14/12/2018; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: NASA
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