Human space flight — and space tourism — took a welcome step forward on Saturday.
That’s because Virgin Galactic made New Mexico the third U.S. state to ever host a space launch. The test flight of the company’s VSS Unity lifted off from Spaceport America in Truth or Consequences, NM a little after 10:30 a.m. ET on Saturday morning.
If you’ve gotten into the habit of tuning in to check out SpaceX launches involving the Falcon 9 launch rocket, it’s worth noting that this one is a little different. The VSS Unity is carried into the sky not by a massive rocket, but by a carrier plane.
This design, dubbed SpaceShip Two, is actually more of a spaceplane. The carrier ship, in this case the VMS Eve, ferries its spacefaring cargo up to the release altitude (44,000 feet). At that point, the Unity detaches from its mothership and ignites its own onboard rocket that takes it the rest of the way into near-orbit. Read more…
More about Virgin Galactic, Science, and Space
Source : Virgin Galactic celebrates its third successful launch, the first ever in New Mexico
