Suborbital: March 2009 Archives

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This Virgin Galactic 6min 31s video has comments by Burt Rutan, Peter Siebold and Will Whitehorn with footage of WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin MotherShip Eve flying

To see Flightglobal.com's own video of the taxi runs and test flights that were posted months ago go here 

Above is Virgin Galactic's official 28 July 2008 WhiteKnight Two roll out video that has recently been posted to its website and below is the original Hyperbola video posted to flightglobal.com on the day last year

Expect the first images of the third WhiteKnight Two test flight tomorrow, they should be available on the Virgin Galactic website after noon

Hyperbola has been told that the WhiteKnight Two prototype Virgin MotherShip Eve's third flight was to 18,000ft, it lasted 2h 20min and 40 "tests" were conducted but we don't know what they were

credit: Flight / caption: 28 July rollout

First HATV test 8 Mar 2009, video montage with timecodes from Sonny W. on Vimeo.

credit: Copenhagen Suborbital / caption: never under estimate the Vikings  

The above rocket, the Danish Copenhagen Suborbital team's Hybrid Atmospheric Test Vehicle (HATV) uses nitrous oxide, following in Burt Rutan's footsteps. Go to the team's website for some more impressive videos of their propulsion technology. The website also lists what they are workng on and for a non-commercial project it is pretty good: 

Heat shield testing
2 HATV booster rockets
Launch tower
HATV launch manifest
Spacecraft design
Test-rig for HATV-booster test

Of the European amateur rocket work I am aware (admittedly not much) this development of hybrid technology seems pretty good

credit: Astrium / caption: the world's financial downturn has grounded Astrium's space jet suborbital  spaceplane

Hyperbola had heard that EADS Astrium had shelved for the time being its aspirations for the suborbital market and now the European space company has confirmed the rumour to this blog with the following statement: "The world economic situation has created a difficult near term environment in which to finalise ongoing discussions with investors. Astrium is to temporarily slow down the technical activities focusing on core risk mitigation for the project. The [space jet] team achieved impressive results in the pre-development phase particularly in the field of propulsion technology. Astrium sees suborbital flight as a promising area because of the emerging space tourism market."

Twelve weeks after the 21 December 2008 first flight of Scaled Composites WhiteKnight Two experimental prototype Virgin MotherShip (VMS) Eve only Hyperbola and flightglobal.com has all the video of the carrier aircraft carrying out taxi trials and test flights; none of which can be found on Virgin Galactic's own website



see more video in the extended portion of this blog post

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

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: VMS Eve makes its maiden flight on 21 December 2008

Click here to listen to the final fifth part of Hyperbola's series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn held on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 9min 37s interview hear Whitehorn talk about the challenge of the waiver concept's legal status, US rules, European regulation, the selection of Spaceport Sweden, a possible Scottish spaceport and more

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: no show for SpaceShip Two till 2011?

Virgin Galactic will likely start commercial flights in the US in 2011, not 2010 as it has stated, according to Spaceport Sweden official Johanna Bergstrom-Roos. Reported by AFP in an article carried by Spacedaily.com, if true the qoute is another indication that the 2010 date, designed to coincide with the completion of facilities at New Mexico's Spaceport America, will not be met

Bergstrom-Roos, seen in the picture below third from the left on the front row, also said that she expected Virgin Galactic flights from Spaceport Sweden in 2012. More pictures can be found here

 
credit Spaceport Sweden / caption: Back row (L-R) are the five new Accredited Space Agents, Hannibal & Marco Polo, Aarhus, Denmark - Anders Martin Larsen; Area Travel Agency, Helsinki, Finland - Teppo Viiperi; Area Travel Agency, Helsinki, Finland - Mari Rouvi; ICEHOTEL Travel, Kiruna, Sweden - Roland Sand; The Search, Malmö, Sweden - Andreas Axelson; Upplevelseakuten, Stockholm, Sweden - Lasse Schmidt; and across the front row (L-R) are Virgin Galactic's Kate Button and Carolyn Wincer; Johanna Bergstrom-Roos, Spaceport Sweden and Carina Johnsson, Swedish Space Corporation

credit: NSSO / caption: this concept of operations has been superceded by a new version after a Sept 2008 event

Almost a month after the 24-26 February National Space Security Office's technology forum for its Rapid delivery of military assets via space request for information details of the event at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and its contributors' proposals have begun to emerge

Hyperbola has obtained the agenda that amongst other things indicates an involvement by General Dynamics in the US military's Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) work and shows that closed government briefing sessions took place at the forum for Alliant Techsystems, Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney, Andrews Space, Rocketplane Global and Blue Origin

Brett Alexander, Personal Spaceflight Foundation president and also a consultant to Blue Origin, was at the mysterious company's presentation, given by its general counsel Robert Millman. Alexander told Hyperbola, "all the right people were there [from] the Department of Defense (Dod). [Blue Origin] was there to talk about its suborbital activities. But [the Dod] are nowhere near an acquistion."  

The agenda also reveals that Xcor Aerospace's chief executive Jeff Greason spoke at the conference. His company has a horizontal take-off reusable launch vehicle related USAF contract. Hyperbola had contacted Xcor and was still waiting for a response at the time of publication of this blog post.

While the agenda does not mention Virgin Galactic that Anglo-American spaceline's president Will Whitehorn (the company is Anglo-US not Whitehorn) had previously told Hyperbola that the company would only attend as an observer

While Hyperbola has also obtained some participants' information that is designated as proprietary...

credit Spaceport America/Virgin Galactic / caption: flights should fly first from Spaceport America in New Mexico

Click here to listen to part four of Hyperbola's series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn held on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 7min 21s interview hear Whitehorn talk about the importance of the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the rate of ticket sales, putting travel agents through centrifuges, US regulations and more

credit Agency.se / caption: Blonde Sir Richard Branson will no doubt feel at home in Sweden

What do you mean you don't read Swedish?

Go through to the extended portion of this blog post to see the translation

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: Virgin Galactic's pilots (L-R): Steve Johnson, chief pilot; David Mackay, chief test pilot; Alex Tai, former Virgin Galactic chief operating officer; and Alistair Hoy, chief training pilot.

click here to listen to Hyperbola's 16min 16s interview with Virgin Galactic's chief test pilot David Mackay (pr.Mack-eye)

David Mackay is Virgin Galactic's chief test pilot on a part time basis while he still works for Virgin Atlantic, which he joined in 1995. He joined the Virgin airline after spending 16 years with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and spent half of that time as a test pilot. He graduated with his test pilot wings from the French test pilot school, École du Personnel Navigant d'Essais et de Réception (EPNER) through an exchange between EPNER and the RAF's Empire Test Pilot School

This audio recording was made during a phone conversation. Noises in the background are my colleagues here in the Flight office

Expect part four of Hyperbola's podcasts with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn on Monday 16 March

credit Flight / caption Virgin Galactic's experimental prototype VMS Eve takes off for a second time on 5 February

Click here to listen to part three of Hyperbola's series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn held on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 8min 32s interview hear Whitehorn talk about WhiteKnight Two's potential as a demonstrator for large scale all-carbon composite aircraft, whether the credit crunch has impacted Virgin Galactic's development timetable, what industries are at risk during the downturn, who his customers are, if they are recession proof and more

credit Virgin Galactic / caption: will we see SpaceShiptwo fly this year?

Click here to download part two of a series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview Hyperbola had with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 9min 46s interview hear Whitehorn talk about marketing the unmanned LauncherOne rocket proposed by Virgin Galactic and Surrey Satellite Technology, comparing the investment in Virgin Galactic with buying Boeing 747s, creating the business plan and more

credit: Myasishchev Design Bureau/Flight / caption: Myasishchev's concept for air launched suborbital tourism

Sources at Russia's United Aircraft (UA) have informed Hyperbola that the Myasishchev Design Bureau is being absorbed into the state run aviation company, created in 2006, and its headquarters is to be bulldozed so the Russian Federal government can sell the land in central Moscow

credit Virgin Galactic  / caption: Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn  

Click here to download part one of a series of podcasts that will in total make up the 45min interview Hyperbola had with Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn on 4 March 2009 in the company's London offices. During this 8min 50s interview hear Whitehorn talk about how early customers influenced the spaceline's plans, how accurate the 2002 Futron study was, why a commercial SpaceShipOne could have been possible but not preferable, where other space tourism projects went wrong in the past and more