The most recent test flight of the Virgin Galactic space glider was aborted seconds after the carrier aircraft disengaged. Recordings from the ground show that the VSS Unity only fired its engine briefly before the sequence was automatically interrupted. The pilots then brought the vehicle back to Spaceport America, where they touched down safely, as Virgin Galactic announced. The first space flight from the US state New Mexico is still a long time coming. Another attempt will be made in the “near future”, assured the billionaire Richard Branson’s company.

Weightlessness for tourists Virgin Galactic has been working for years to offer tourist flights into space, on which passengers should experience weightlessness for minutes. The death of a test pilot in a crash delayed the original schedule, but test flights have been taking place again for several years. So far, however, only space has been reached, based on the US definition, according to which from 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) begins. Before the now scheduled test flight over New Mexico, there was speculation as to whether the suborbital SpaceShipTwo could now also reach the internationally defined limit at 100 kilometers altitude.

In the morning of 12. In December, the White Knight carrier aircraft took off from the company’s spaceport in New Mexico. Later the rocket-propelled glider Unity was disconnected and its engine ignited. Photos from the ground show, however, that the demolition took place shortly afterwards. According to Virgin Galactic, a monitoring computer had lost the connection and the engine was deactivated immediately. That is a built-in security mechanism. The two test pilots would then have brought the aircraft safely to earth and made a picture-book landing on Spaceport America.

The test flight is to be repeated in the near future, according to CNBC it is the first of a total of three planned. With these, the development should be completed before tourists can fly with them. Richard Branson wants to take part in the third of these test flights; this flight was scheduled for the first quarter of the coming year. The extent to which this will be delayed is not yet known.

(mho)