S1 Ep:2 Space Titan
Virgin Galactic
We are at the vanguard of a new industry determined to pioneer twenty-first-century spacecraft, which will open space for everybody and change the world for good.
-Sir Richard Branson (Founder)
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About Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is known as the first commercial spaceline and vertically integrated aerospace company. It also has a sibling company, namely The Spaceship company. It was founded by Richard Branson in 2004. At that time his main objective was to send a maiden flight till 2009 but that got delayed several times. While Branson suggested, in October 2017, that he could travel to space aboard a SpaceShipTwo within six months, it was not until 13 December 2018 that VSS Unity achieved the project's first suborbital flight, reaching an altitude of 82.7 kilometers, officially entering outer space by US standards. The project carried a third person as a passenger in February 2019, when a member of the team sat and floated within the cabin during a flight that reached 89.9 kilometers. Its base objective had always been to send commercial flights filled with passengers to space.
Virgin Galactic Spaceships
Virgin Galactic operates the reusable SpaceShipTwo spaceflight system. This consists of WhiteKnightTwo, a custom-built, carrier aircraft, and SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first passenger-carrying spaceship to be built by an individual company and operated in commercial service. The first Virgin Galactic spaceship to enter service is VSS Unity. Built by The Spaceship Company, Unity and her sister spaceships will, for the first time, offer everyone the opportunity to become private astronauts and experience the wonder of space for themselves. The spaceships will also offer the research community a unique platform for space-based science. The White Knight Two is a special airplane built the same as the mothership and launch platform for the spacecraft SpaceShipTwo and therefore the unmanned launch vehicle LauncherOne. The mothership is a large fixed-wing aircraft with two hulls linked together by a central wing. Two aircraft are planned – VMS Eve and VMS Spirit of Steve Fossett. The LauncherOne system will use a Boeing 747-400 as the mothership. The B747 Cosmic Girl has been acquired for the duties. For more reference, you can also check Wikipedia
Current Situation
Sir Richard Branson, in the form of "Veeco US," controls 58.8% of Virgin Galactic's shares. Shareholders of what wants to be SCH own 40.2%. The remaining 1% of Virgin Galactic's shares, believe it or not, are now owned by Boeing (NYSE: BA) which, having its own space business, might ordinarily be considered a Virgin Galactic competitor! Boeing's venture arm HorizonX, you see, made a $20 million investment to take a 1% share in Virgin Galactic when it went public. And this often interesting because it gives Boeing insight into the corporate. Boeing can use that to learn how good of a business space tourism might become without making investments of its own. It also gives Boeing insight into any advances Virgin Galactic might make in commercial air transportation. Some customers withdrew from their spot on the passenger list following the lengthy delay in Virgin Galactic's first spaceflight, but most have said they understand that the company is trying to put safety first. "Remember, this is pioneering technology," said passenger Jackie Maw during 2011. While testing continues on SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic has been working to diversify the business. Virgin signed an agreement with NASA in 2011 to work together on research flights. The company also brokered a deal with the Southwest Research Institute to fly the institute's scientists and experiments into space. Branson also announced the development of LauncherOne, an expendable liquid-fueled rocket. The first rocket-powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo took place in April 2013 and another followed in September 2013, then another in January 2014. Each flight went well, with Enterprise zooming high in the sky faster than the speed of sound. But tragedy struck during the fourth rocket-powered flight, on Oct. 31, 2014, when the vehicle broke apart. The incident killed co-pilot Michael Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the accident was caused by SpaceShipTwo's "feathering" re-entry system deploying too early, as a result of an error by Alsbury. The next version of SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, includes safeguards that will prevent this scenario from happening again, company representatives said.
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| Spaceport |
With the arrival of SpaceShipTwo in the New Mexico desert, Virgin Galactic says it will launch captive carry and glide flights from the New Mexico base so the spaceflight team can coordinate with Virgin’s airspace and ground control of the port. After the glide tests, the team will carry out rocket-powered test flights from Spaceport America to continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s performance, including “final spaceship cabin and customer experience evaluations in preparation for the start of commercial spaceflight operations.” Branson compared the growth of the space tourism market to the early days of aviation when transatlantic flights cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He believes the prices for space tourism will come down even more quickly than commercial aviation did. The irrepressible Sir Richard Branson, a founder of the company, has vowed to be among the first customers, as a sort of human proof of concept. As the Virgin Galactic website trumpets, “Together we open space to change the world for good.” Branson will turn 70 in July. But as his improbable career shows, the British billionaire might just pull it off. For more information on the spaceport of virgin galactic, you can visit here
Other Competitors
Virgin Galactic is not the only corporation pursuing suborbital spacecraft for tourism. Blue Origin is developing suborbital flights with its New Shepard spacecraft. Although more secretive about its plans, Jeff Bezos has said Blue Origin is developing a spacecraft that would take off and land vertically and carry three or more astronauts to the edge of space. New Shepard has flown above the Karman line, landed, and been reflown to above the Karman line again. On 16 September 2014, SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts as part of NASA's CCtCap program to develop their Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, respectively. Both are capsule designs to bring the crew to orbit, a different commercial market than that addressed by Virgin Galactic. Now-defunct XCOR Aerospace had also worked on rocket-powered aircraft during many of the years that Virgin Galactic had; XCOR's Lynx suborbital vehicle was under development for quite a decade, and its predecessor, the XCOR EZ-Rocket experimental rocket-powered airplane did actually take flight, but the company closed its doors in 2017.
Collaborations
Potential collaboration with NASA
In February 2007, Virgin announced that that they had signed a memorandum of understanding with NASA to explore the potential for collaboration, but, to date, this has produced only a comparatively small accept 2011 of up to $4.5 million for research flights.
OneWeb satellite Internet access provider
Virgin Group in January 2015, announced an investment into the OneWeb satellite constellation providing world Internet access service of WorldVu. Virgin Galactic will take a share of the launch contracts to launch the satellites into their 1200 km orbits. the potential launches would use the under-design LauncherOne system.
Collaboration with Boom Technology
Virgin Galactic and therefore the Virgin Group are collaborating with Boom Technology to make a replacement supersonic passenger transporter as a successor to the Concorde. This new supersonic plane would fly at Mach 2.2 (similar to Concorde) for a 3-hour trans-Atlantic flight (half of the standard), projected to cost $2,500–10,000 per seat (half of Concorde) for a load of 45 passengers (the Concorde held 100). it's anticipated that with the buildup of data since the planning of Concorde, the new plane would be safer and cheaper with better fuel economy, operating costs, and aerodynamics. The boom would collaborate with Virgin's The Spaceship Company for design, engineering, and flight-test support, and manufacturing.
The initial model would be the Boom Technology XB-1 "Baby Boom" Supersonic Demonstrator 1/3-size prototype. it might be capable of trans-Pacific flight, LA-to-Sydney in 6.75 hours, traveling at 2,335 km/h (1,451 mph). XB-1 would be equipped with General Electric J85 engines, Honeywell avionics, with composite structures fabricated by Blue Force using TenCate Advanced Composites carbon fiber products. the primary flight is scheduled for late 2017. Virgin Galactic has optioned 10 units.
Collaboration with Under Armour
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| Virgin galactic x Under Armour |
On 24 January 2019, Virgin Galactic announced a partnership with Under Armour for the fabrication of space suits for passengers and pilots of SpaceShipTwo. Under Armour also will create uniforms for Virgin Galactic employees performing at Spaceport America. the complete range referred to as the UA | VG (Under Armour | Virgin Galactic) built with UA's new Intelliknit fabric was revealed later this year, before Richard Branson's inaugural commercial flight. This range includes a base layer, the spacesuit, and footwear. it's said that the bottom layer will enhance performance and blood flow during the high and zero-G portions of flight and therefore the liner of the spacesuit is formed from new fabrics like Tencel Luxe, SpinIt, and Nomex, used for temperature control and moisture management.
The project carried the 3 people as a passenger in February 2019, when a member of the team sat and floated within the cabin during a flight that reached 89.9 kilometers. Its base objective had always been to send commercial flights crammed with passengers to space.
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