Finishing off some of the work for the forthcoming Flight International magazine feature on Virgin Galactic the spaceline's president Will Whitehorn has told Hyperbola
- the reality TV series will follow the documentary series
- work for the documentary series "is now underway"
- there will be an announcement in April for the documentary programme(s)
- the reality tv series will air after the spaceline is operating commercially
- The Spaceship Company (TSC) is underway and has just leased an extensive facility in Mojave near Scaled to commence its activities. TSC is being headed up by Virgin Galactic's Enrico Palermo
I recognise Hyperbola has been a bit Virgin Galactic heavy of late, expect normal service to resume shortly
on March 20, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply
So by TSC 'commencing activities' you mean further WK and SS2 vehicle construction is moving out of SCALED? Or is the faciity just for flight ops.
Details, man!!! And it does seem like the most exciting stuff is coming from VG and SpaceX anyway. Keep on bugging Branson, Rutan and Musk!
on March 21, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply
Virgin Galactic has organised itself like this, its parent company Virgin group has licensed SpaceShipOne technology from that spacecraft's funder Paul Allen and his Mojave Aerospace Venture's intellectual propertyright holding company to be used for the SpaceShip Two (SS2) and WhiteKnight Two (WK2) system. Virgin group has a joint venture with Scaled Composites called The SpaceShip Company. Scaled Composites is separately contracted to develop the SS2/WK2 system (I don't know if that contract is with Virgin group or Virgin Galactic exactly) but TSC will legally be the manufacturer of the SS2/WK2, of which Virgin Galactic has ordered two WK2s and five SS2s, at least - I need to check the latest figures. The idea being that in the future other potential spaceline operators (or even private individuals) can buy WK2s and SS2s. It may be that the leased facility will be involved in final assembly and/or checkout. I doubt that TSC will buy the manufacturing technology Scaled has to produce the WK2 wing etc but rather TSC will subcontract the manufacture of much of the vehicles to Scaled and some of the assembly, and very probably the interior fittings and power up and test activities could be done at TSC with relatively less capital investment than if TSC did everything, or in the jargon was "vertically integrated". I'll certainly be looking to speak to Enrico in the near future (I have met him before) about TSC's plans but I think for now it is still very early days. To answer your other question, flight op's for the test programme I expect to be a Scaled show and commercial ops will see a Virgin Galactic flight op center in New Mexico, so no I don't think TSC is for that.