Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites design for Spaceship 2 - pictures
The latest Virgin Galactic / Scaled Composites design for the successor to their first space vehicle (called Spaceship 1 appropriately enough!) has been unwrapped and displayed to the World’s press by the glowing egos of Sir Richard Branson (”the bearded one”) and Burt Rutan.
The new design follows the established pattern of its fore-runner in relying on a carrier vehicle, in this case White Knight 2 but is much larger which will hopefully make the new ship more than just a technology demonstrator but actually capable of doing something useful.
The design is modular in nature and able to accommodate alternative design criteria for future production models allowing third party companies to order custom White Knight and Spaceship designs to suit their own mission and payload requirements.
The airframe is of carbon fiber composite providing the vehicle with a very strong but light structural platform and the ability to comply with ever-more-stringent flight safety standards.
Landing facilities will provided by New Mexico Spaceport in 2010 which will now become Virgin Galactic’s commercial operations centre winning that role from Mojave Air and Space Port, California although the existing launch site will continue to serve as the base for tests until then.
Here are some specs for the new vehicles:
White Knight 2
- Wingspan: 42.7m
- Tail height: 7.62m
- Engines: 4 x Pratt & Whitney PW308
- Length: 18.3m
- Wingspan: 12.8m
- Tail height: 4.5m
- Passenger cabin dimensions: 3.66m long, 2.28m diameter
- Release altitude: 50,000ft (15,200m)
- Maximum altitude: 110 km (68 miles)
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