Virgin Galactic Plans Spaceflight Test for October 22 Written 8 September 2020
SpaceShipTwo in a captive flight configuration underneath White Knight Two | Jeff Foust; Wikipedia; CC BY 2.0
CNBC reported that, according to documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday, Virgin Galactic plans to conduct its next crewed spaceflight test on October 22 from the company’s operating base at Spaceport America in New Mexico. A spokesperson with the company confirmed this, but said that the launch may happen in the days following October 22 since that date marks the beginning of a flight window. The “flight will be the first of two that the space tourism company has planned to complete testing of its SpaceShipTwo spacecraft system and should have just two test pilots on board.” Virgin Galactic said that the second spaceflight test will have four “mission specialists” inside the cabin. If both test flights succeed, the company expects to fly its founder Sir Richard Branson aboard a SpaceShipTwo spacecraft in the first quarter of 2021.
Full Story (CNBC)