Space Vehicle Profile: SpaceShipTwo

Expected to make its maiden commercial flight in 2010 Virgin Galactic’s, Scaled Composites designed SpaceShipTwo (SS2) could be flying into space in late 2009 on test fights.

Designed to carry eight people including two pilots to above 100km (62miles) on a suborbital trajectory the SS2 is a rocket glider.

Air launched at about 50,000ft from its mothership, WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), SS2’s pilot would fire its hybrid rocket motor that will burn for at least 70s before cutting off and leaving the vehicle to coast to its apogee altitude. The hybrid motor uses a solid fuel that combusts with an oxidiser that is expected to be nitrous oxide, however the type of solid fuel is unknown.

Before its descent, the SS2 pilot will move the wing into a position perpendicular to its fuselage to create an aerodynamic effect more akin to a capsule. This decelerates the vehicle quickly and the pilot then switches the wing back to its original, conventional, configuration for an unpowered glide back to the runway.

Originally to cost $100 million and to launch in 2007 the final cost of the SS2 and WK2s design, development, test and production of the first few commercial vehicles will be above $300 million.

The first commercial flights could be from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California but it may also be from what will be Virgin Galactic’s world headquarters in New Mexico at that state’s Spaceport America.