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SpaceShipTwo’s carrier makes first flight

A carrier aircraft designed to be the first stage of a commercial spaceline system made its maiden test flight Sunday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
Image: WhiteKnightTwo takes flight
Virgin Galactic's twin-fuselage WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane takes to the air for the first time on Sunday after weeks of taxi tests. The plane will serve as the mothership for the SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket plane.Bill Deaver / Mojave Desert News
/ Source: Space.com

A carrier aircraft designed to be the first stage of a commercial spaceline system made its maiden test flight Sunday at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Designed by Scaled Composites, the huge and unique White Knight Two mothership rolled down the runway and muscled itself into the air using four Pratt and Whitney PW308A turbofan engines. The White Knight Two flew for about an hour, departing the runway at roughly 8:17 a.m. PT, safely touching down at the Mojave airport at approximately 9:17 a.m. PT.

"It's a big day," said Stuart Witt, general manager of Mojave Air and Space Port. "I think it's a real reflective time. When everybody's looking for a bailout, there are still people that are doing something for a much larger reason," he told Space.com.

After a number of shakeout flights, the White Knight Two is to be outfitted with the now-under-construction SpaceShipTwo. That rocket plane is also being built by Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif. Ultimately White Knight Two is to carry the space plane to altitude, where it will then detach and head for suborbital space flights.

The White Knight Two / SpaceShipTwo combo is to serve as the backbone of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceline operations.

Virgin Galactic has on order five SpaceShipTwo rocket planes and two of the carrier craft, with options on more.

Given a progressive roster of test evaluations at the Mojave Air and Space Port, the spaceline system is to be commercially operated at the now-under-construction Spaceport America in New Mexico. The price tag per seat on the two-pilot / six-passenger suborbital SpaceShipTwo is $200,000.

Minimum crew
The hourlong test flight of WhiteKnightTwo made use of a minimum flight test crew.

"And here we are on a Sunday morning ... in a place out here in the middle of nowhere and really neat stuff is happening. It just looked beautiful," Witt said. "What brings people to this desolate landscape on a Sunday morning in December is more about what forced them here. Innovation by the private sector is a void being filled because NASA deserted 90 percent of the sandbox and left it open for us to fill."

One witness to the flight was Dick Rutan, who in December 1986 piloted the Voyager aircraft around the world nonstop with the assistance of Jeana Yeager. He is brother of Burt Rutan, chief technology officer and chairman emeritus of Scaled Composites.

"It all went well ... all the big things worked well," Rutan told SPACE.com. "Overall, 99 percent on target and everybody is really happy. You get an airplane that's this weird and get it up and get it down ... and it's safe on deck."

Commercial space program
In 2004, a smaller White Knight carrier plane cradled SpaceShipOne — a launch system that made possible the first non-governmental piloted rocket ship to fly to the edge of space. Back-to-back flights of SpaceShipOne that year earned the Scaled Composites team $10 million in Ansari X Prize money.

On Dec. 15, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority announced that Spaceport America has received its environmental record of decision and its license for vertical and horizontal launch operations from the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation.

A few days later, the spaceport authority announced the selection of Gerald Martin Construction Management of Albuquerque, N.M., to oversee the construction of Spaceport America.

The governmental approvals and the selection of the construction firm are the next steps along the road to a fully operational commercial spaceport, said Steven Landeene, the spaceport authority's executive director. "We are on track to begin construction in the first quarter of 2009, and have our facility completed as quickly as possible," Landeene said in a press statement.

The spaceport authority is expected to have a signed lease agreement with Virgin Galactic later this month. The authority currently projects vertical launch activity at Spaceport America to increase in 2009 and construction to begin next year on the terminal and hangar facility to be utilized for Virgin Galactic operations. Those structures would be completed by late 2010.

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than four decades. He is past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines and has written for Space.com since 1999.