VSS Enterprise GF18

Overview

Destination: Suborbital
Mission: Test Flight

Suborbital Mojave Air and Space Port Air launch to Suborbital flight

Free glide test flight of VSS Enterprise.

SpaceShipTwo

Family: SpaceShipTwo
Configuration:

The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic.

Specifications
  • Stages
    1
  • Length
    18.0 m
  • Diameter
    8.2 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    9 T
  • Thrust
    310 kN
Family
  • Name
    SpaceShipTwo
  • Family
    SpaceShipTwo
  • Variant
  • Alias
  • Full Name
    SpaceShipTwo
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
  • Low Earth Orbit
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity

VSS Enterprise


Active Human Rated Crew On-board: 2 Crew Capacity: 8
Destination: Suborbital
Serial Number: N339SS

VSS Enterprise was the first SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spaceplane, built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. As of 2004, it was planned to be the first of five commercial suborbital SS2 spacecraft planned by Virgin Galactic. Enterprise was destroyed during a powered test flight on 31 October 2014, killing one pilot, Michael Alsbury, and seriously injuring another, Peter Siebold. An investigation revealed the accident was caused by premature deployment of the "feathering" system, the ship's descent device; the NTSB also faulted the spacecraft's design for lacking fail-safe mechanisms that could have deterred or prevented early deployment.

SpaceShipTwo Details

Crew


Mark Stucky

Pilot - American - ( VG )

Status: Retired

Date of Birth: Nov. 9, 1958
Age: 64

David Mackay

Pilot - British - ( VG )

Status: Active

Date of Birth: Jan. 1, 1957
Age: 66

Virgin Galactic

Circle Image
Founder: Richard Branson Founded: 2004 Successes: 53 Failures: 5 Pending: 0

Agency Type: Private

Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company within the Virgin Group. It is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two.

INFO WIKI

Air launch to Suborbital flight

Mojave Air and Space Port


Long March 4C
Success
2 days, 2 hours ago
Yaogan 34-04
Launch Area 4 (SLS-2 / 603) - Jiuquan, People's Republic of China

Officially described as an optical remote-sensing satellite built by SAST.


Long March 2D
Success
2 days, 22 hours ago
PIESAT-1 x 4
Launch Complex 9 - Taiyuan, People's Republic of China

4 X-band synthetic-aperture radar Earth observation satellites for PIESAT (1 main, 3 sub-satellites), operating in tandem using very long baseline in…


Falcon 9
Success
3 days, 13 hours ago
Starlink Group 5-10
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 56 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Soyuz 2-1v
Success
3 days, 13 hours ago
Kosmos 2568 (EO MKA-4)
43/4 (43R) - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Note: Payload identity uncertain. Russian reconnaissance satellite of unknown purposes, possibly in the same series as Kosmos 2551, 2555 and 2560.


Shavit-2
Success
4 days, 10 hours ago
Ofek-13
Unknown Pad - Palmachim Airbase, State of Israel

Ofek is a series of Israeli reconnaissance satellites. Ofek-13 is an Israeli SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) reconnaissance satellite that combines hi…


LVM-3 (GSLV Mk III)
Success
1 week ago
OneWeb 18
Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad - Sriharikota, Republic of India

A batch of 36 satellites for the OneWeb satellite constellation, which is intended to provide global Internet broadband service for individual consum…


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 1 day ago
Starlink Group 5-5
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 56 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Electron
Success
1 week, 2 days ago
The Beat Goes On
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B - Onenui Station, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand

Payload consists of 2 second generation Earth-imaging satellites for BlackSky. They are part of a constellation of 60 Low Earth Orbit Earth imagin…


Soyuz 2.1a
Success
1 week, 3 days ago
Kosmos 2567 (Bars-M No. 4)
43/3 (43L) - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Note: Payload identity uncertain. Bars-M is the second incarnation of the Bars project, which was started in the mid 1990ies to develop a success…


Terran 1
Failure
1 week, 3 days ago
Good Luck, Have Fun (Maiden Flight)
Launch Complex 16 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

Maiden launch of the Terran 1 rocket developed by Relativity Space.