SpaceShipTwo
- March 23, 2010 ( with carrier aircraft )
- October 10, 2010 ( gliding )
SpaceShipTwo is a private, still under development space plane from the Spaceship Company, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Scaled Composites. The space plane is from 2014 suborbital space flights perform and later be used for space tourism.
- 3.1 Driving
- 3.2 Accident in engine testing
Development
SpaceShipTwo is the successor of the type SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded spacecraft has reached within two weeks as part of the Ansari X-Prize twice the space. Construction and development were made by Burt Rutan much, who is also co-owner of Virgin Galactic.
Designed and built by Scaled Composites is the SpaceShipTwo, authorities and operators will be Virgin Galactic. Virgins CEO, Richard Branson is planning to invest about 100 million U.S. dollars for the construction of passenger space ship in the next few years. Among other things, go about 20 million U.S. dollars for license rights to Mojave Aerospace Ventures ( MAV ), a company founded by Rutan and Paul Allen to market the SpaceShipOne technology companies.
The rollout of the first SpaceShipTwo, which bears the name " VSS Enterprise " A first test flight from the Mojave Air & Space Port in California, in which the spacecraft has not yet been released from the carrier aircraft took place on 7 December 2009., Found on March 23,, 2010. Also without decoupling of the first manned flight of the spacecraft took place on July 15. In the 37th test flight of the aircraft carrier " VMS Eve" broke off the left landing gear, so that the carrier aircraft was slightly damaged. The first free flight of the VSS Enterprise completed on 10 October 2010.
4 May 2011 ( flight- see section ) was during the seventh free flight of the so-called spring mode successfully tested over the Mojave Air & Space Port.
In June 2012, the FAA issued Scaled Composites to carry out the approval missile tests. The first test flight of SpaceShipTwo rocket-propelled took place on April 29, 2013, the second on September 5, 2013.
Tourist flights will be carried out from 2014. An authorization by the Federal Aviation Administration was in February 2014 yet, as up to this time not all the necessary test flights were performed. About 700 passengers have already paid for a ticket. Also a second spacecraft SpaceShipTwo class is already planned that the name " VSS Voyager " should receive.
Test flights
See source.
Flight-
The carrier aircraft White Knight Two will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico, carry the capacity aircraft up to 15.2 km altitude and release there. After a few seconds ongoing unpowered flight ignite the rocket engine of SpaceShipTwo and accelerates it to a pointing steeply upward path within thirty seconds to Mach 3 This act on the occupant accelerations up to 3.5 times the acceleration due to gravity one. After about two minutes, and at about 4200 km / h, the engine is switched off.
There now follows an approximately four to five minutes lasting, weightless, suborbital flight, where SpaceShipTwo in a ballistic curve until further rises and then falls. At the highest point of the trajectory is about 110 km above the earth's surface, in the thermosphere, beyond the space limit of 100 km. Passengers are to portholes 33-43 cm size.
This is followed by an almost two- minute-long brake the descent in spring mode ( feather configuration), a defined stall, which is caused by a 90 ° rotation of the two tail booms including the tail upwards. This act on the passengers accelerations up to 6 g With a height of 16,700 m, the tail booms are turned back and the plane goes into a glide. It lands 25 to 50 minutes later on his home airport.
Technology
According to the designer Rutan, the new spacecraft will fly higher and 100 to 200 miles a longer down range ( descent ) phase than the previous model. It should also be almost twice as large at 18.3 m in length and made entirely of carbon fiber. For braking and stabilization of the fall at high altitude, the rear wing can be rotated with the tailplane pneumatically upwards, so as its predecessor a defined spin arises. The wing leading edge and the bow are provided with a heat protection.
The maximum number of passengers is six persons, the spacecraft is controlled by two pilots. As a pilot for the spacecraft, the test pilot Dave MacKay and the Chief Astronaut Steve Johnson were mentioned previously.
Drive
The drive is to be used as SpaceShipOne, a hybrid rocket engine. It consists of a pipe made of solid plastic, which burns a fuel, and the fuel supplied from a tank gaseous dinitrogen monoxide ( nitrous oxide, N 2 O) as the oxidizer.
In October 2013, the start of flight operations has been postponed indefinitely. The reason considerable problems apply to the driving of SpaceShipTwo. The engines have never been tested up to this point in the full, required runtime, unconfirmed has claimed that she did not achieve the necessary thrust. If the information is correct, large parts of the spacecraft have to be redesigned, which may also require changes to the carrier machine. Both parts of the system must then obtain a new authorization. For this purpose, schedules are not foreseeable.
The CO2 emissions per passenger for a flight correspond to about 60 percent of the emissions of a transatlantic flight between New York and London. About 70 percent of the emissions come from the carrier aircraft, which carries SpaceShipTwo into the stratosphere.
Accident during engine testing
On 26 July 2007 it was at ground tests at the advanced rocket engine to a strong explosion in which three technicians were killed and three other technicians were seriously injured. The State Labour Protection Agency OSHA in California investigated the accident, but could not until January 2008 to determine the direct cause of the explosion. Scaled put together then a private investigative team of experienced rocket engineers to examine the process and to eliminate similar incidents in the future. It is believed the cause in an incompatibility between nitrous oxide ( N2O) and composite materials, which led to the inflammation in the tank, and is now working with modified materials.
Spacecraft
Five ships of the class are planned SpaceShipTwo. Only two were appointed in October 2007 and are currently being developed, the VSS Enterprise and VSS Voyager.
1 Date of data: August 7, 2011