Recently in Suborbital Category

So the blogosphere is getting all worked up about an article run by Space News and authored by two former senior European Space Agency launcher officials that attacks sub-orbital tourism and hopes for commercial orbital transport

Hyperbola stresses the word former as it is clear that ESA's leadership does not share these views. The organisation has a policy on space tourism that could see ESA provide training, the agency has managed European Union studies about sub-orbital transport and the agency has even gone as far as helping prospective companies with their business plans and declaring that sub-orbit travel has a low (relatively speaking) carbon footprint. Former European astronauts like space tourism too

Videos from what used to be called the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight and is now the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight have been posted online care of Spaceport Sweden. Above is a video with Commercial Spaceflight Federation chairman and New Mexico Spaceport Authority executive director Steve Landeene and the other videos can be found here. The ISPCS took place this year from 21-22 October

Watch this video of the Internatonal Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea where Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn, Sierra Nevada vice president Mark Sirangelo, the FAA's head of commercial space transportation George Nield and New Mexico space grant consortium director Pat Hynes spoke about private access to space

Go here for more IAC2009 videos

Hyperbola is launching to the Oort cloud for a week's R&R from today and will be returning via Daejeon, Korea from the 12 October. In Daejeon Hyperbola will be blogging from the International Astronautical Congress, where the world's space community meets. And yes there may even be Virgin Galactic news there...

Well perhaps long awaited by the two guys at the centre of Project Enterprise who have probably wondered whatever happened to the April 2009 interview Hyperbola did with them at the Space Access Society conference in Phoenix, Arizona - you can hear the wildlife in the background. But here it is anyway, I knew I hadn't lost it...

Warning: This video was taken with a Flip video camera and while attempts to improve the audio through Windows Movie Maker have been made this blog takes no responsibility for the quality at your end

Scroll down the menu above to find Flightglobal's videos, all 13 of them, of Virgin Galactic activity at the Experimental Aircraft Association Airventure Oshkosh 2009 air show

Hyperbola has heard that following the rocket motor tests that Virgin Galactic publicised with videos earlier this year (and its prime contractor Scaled Composites reported on its online test logs) work is focusing on the flight weight engine

In all rocket engine projects intending to fly something there are engineering development units that are used so the design can be tested while components may be at an earlier level of maturity, earlier than they have to be come the final flying version

But eventually the development work has to approach the mass and performance engine targets required of the propelled vehicle

Hyperbola understands that testing and firings are ongoing and that while the Scaled test logs web page has not been updated since 20 May more videos and test logs can be expected later this year, in a few months time

Around the time the prototype SpaceShip Two will be rolled out for its unveiling and first captive carry flight on its mothership WhiteKnight Two Eve perhaps?

credit FAA / caption: Babbitt gets a tour of WK2

New US Federal Aviation Administration administrator J. Randolph "Randy" Babbitt got a tour of Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnight Two at EAA Airventure Oshkosh last week. His agency's office of commercial space transportation will have to certify the mothership as a launch platform for SpaceShip Two and award Virgin Galactic its permits for flying its customers to above 100km (62miles) 

credit Flightglobal / caption: Sir Richard Branson is greeted after his demo flight

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to watch all of Flightglobal's videos of Virgin Galactic activity at the Experimental Aircraft Association Airventure Oshkosh 2009 air show

Care of my Flightglobal colleague Jon Ostrower and his Flightblogger blog at 2min 25s into the above video Scaled Composites founder Burt Rutan talks about the life support system that SpaceShip Two and WhiteKnight Two share