This week marks the seventh anniversary of the X-Prize winning flight of SpaceShipOne. Brian Binnie’s 24 minute flight to more than 367,000 feet captured the world’s imagination and put a spotlight on the opportunity of private space flight. In the years since there have been some delays, but training for flights has already started even though a specific flight schedule has not been announced.
For those planning on a sub-orbital flight in Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, one of the first steps is going through centrifuge and high altitude training to prepare for the g-forces that will be experienced during the flight as well as learning about the effects of very thin air on the body.
The practice sessions take place at the National AeroSpace Training and Research center near Philidelphia. According to a story in Aviation Week & Space Technology, the center has provided SpaceShipTwo simulations to would be passengers, and is just one of the signs that the private space continues to grow. The center can also replicate launching from an Atlas V rocket.
Beyond the space tourists Virgin Galactic has signed up for SpaceShipTwo flights, there is also excitement in the commercial space delivery arena. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been given the go ahead to combine the final two test flights of its Dragon spacecraft into a single mission. This will allow the SpaceX team to dock with the International Space Station on its next flight, after a rehearsal ‘mock docking’ where the spacecraft will approach the ISS but not actually dock. Both events will take place on the same flight.
Musk also announced recently that SpaceX is working towards making the Falcon rocket system used for launch a fully reusable system.
“I wasn’t sure it could be solved, for a while,” Musk said at the National Press Club in Washignton D.C., “but then I think just relatively recently — probably in the last 12 months or so — I’ve come to the conclusion that it can be solved and I think SpaceX is going to try to do it.”
Making the launch system full reusable would mean the main recurring cost of a launch would be around $200,000 for the propellant. Musk believes if a $50-60 million rocket could be reused a thousand times, the cost of a launch could be reduced to just $50,000.
The SpaceX launch was expected to happen next month, but with the recent loss of a Soyuz rocket and payload bound for the ISS, the Falcon rocket launch has been put on hold.
Virgin Galactic continues flight testing of SpaceShipTwo with the 16th glide flight taking place last week. Powered flights are expected to begin soon and Virgin has said it hopes to begin passenger flights as early as late next year.
Photo: Virgin Galactic
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