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Spaceship Enterprise debuts

Posted: Monday, December 07, 2009 9:50 AM by Alan Boyle

Hundreds of paying space tourists and travel agents, rocket geeks and glitterati have gathered in the California desert town of Mojave to see what's likely to be the first commercial suborbital spaceship up close.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane has been under development for years in a Mojave hangar at Scaled Composites - the company that built the craft's predecessor, SpaceShipOne, to win a $10 million prize for private spaceflight five years ago.

The aerospace guru behind both rocket planes, Burt Rutan, is known for playing his cards close to the vest - and today's unveiling marks the first opportunity for outsiders to get a close look at his latest brainchild.

The money man behind SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Group billionaire Richard Branson, is known for playing the glitz game to market his ventures - and today's event is shaping up as a Virgin classic, complete with a spotlighted stage and a post-unveiling cocktail party.

Some insider-outsiders got an early peek at the rocketship over the weekend. "I just saw SpaceShipTwo," Masten Space Systems' Ben Brockert reported in a Twitter update Sunday. "It's very large and shiny. It's really impressive mounted to the mothership."

This craft is the first of a fleet of at least five expected to be built. This one has been dubbed the VMS Enterprise - in a nod to the famous starship of the "Star Trek" television and movie saga.

Enterprise's unveiling marks the beginning of a new phase for Virgin Galactic, coming after last year's big reveal for SpaceShipTwo's WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane (dubbed "Eve" in honor of Branson's mother) and this year's successful series of rocket engine tests. "Virgin Galactic is now in the final stretch of becoming the world's first commercial spaceline," Branson declares in a promotional video.

Branson is spending an estimated $250 million on his space venture. The company already has signed up more than 300 would-be spacefliers, including actress Victoria Principal, Hollywood director Bryan Singer and 90-year-old enviro-theorist James Lovelock. Paralyzed cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who sampled zero-G two years ago, may eventually fly as well.

The price for a three-day space tour package, including training, is $200,000.

SpaceShipTwo is designed to carry six passengers and two pilots to the edge of outer space, past the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude mark. The flight profile would provide about four minutes of weightlessness, a commanding view of a curving Earth below the black sky of space, and the world's highest roller-coaster ride going up and coming down.

Rutan has kept mum so far about his expectations for the flight schedule, but observers guess that 2011 or 2012 is the earliest time frame for the start of commercial service. Between now and then, SpaceShipTwo is likely to go through scores of flight tests.

The first phase, due to begin early next year, would involve captive-carry tests, during which the rocket plane would ride inertly between WhiteKnightTwo's twin cabins so that Scaled's team can check the aerodynamics of the combined crafts. Then there would be drop tests, in which SpaceShipTwo would be released and piloted into a glide back down to Earth.

Eventually, the hybrid rocket motor would be added to the mix: SpaceShipTwo would light up its engine in a series of powered flights, climaxing with the full profile for commercial service. SpaceShipTwo would be dropped from WhiteKnightTwo at a height of 50,000 feet, blast off, rise to spaceworthy heights and go supersonic on the way down.

SpaceShipTwo uses the same "carefree re-entry" design pioneered by SpaceShipOne. During the peak phase of the flight, the wings fold forward in such a way that the craft stabilizes itself as it descends through the atmosphere, even without pilot intervention.

But testing isn't simply a case of "flown there, done that": The new rocketship has been scaled up to more than twice SpaceShipOne's 28-foot length, as shown in this comparative graphic from Virgin Galactic, and that could affect how the craft performs.

There's always the chance of suffering a setback during the test phase, as the Scaled Composites team knows all too well: In 2007, a nitrous-oxide tank exploded at Scaled's rocket test site, killing three of the company's employees. The tragedy caused significant delays in the SpaceShipTwo development effort.

In addition to carrying people, SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo could carry scientific experiments. WhiteKnightTwo is designed so that it could launch either the piloted SpaceShipTwo or an unpiloted rocket. And SpaceShipTwo could conceivably bring up experimental packages, even during its testing phase.

Stay tuned for updates to this item as the day unfolds. Join the Cosmic Log team by signing up as my Facebook friend or following b0yle on Twitter. And pick up a copy of my new book, "The Case for Pluto." If you're partial to the planetary underdogs, you'll be pleased to know that I've set up a Facebook fan page for "The Case for Pluto."


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