SpaceShipTwo performs second glide test

The first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Enterprise, performed a glide test this morning in the skies above the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, according to observers as well as Virgin Galactic. No details about the flight test, other than that it was successful, have been released, although when more details are available they’ll likely […]

Photo gallery of the Spaceport America event

These are all photos I took of Friday’s event, including the people, facilities, and, of course, WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo.

A little extra at the Spaceport America dedication

WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo soar above the crowd at Spaceport America on Friday. (credit: J. Foust)

Friday’s events at Spaceport America went off pretty much as planned. There were the speeches by dignitaries (including Richard Branson, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver), followed by the flyover by WhiteKnightTwo with SpaceShipTwo […]

Highlights from ISPCS day 2

The International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico, wrapped up yesterday with another series of panels after an opening keynote by NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver. In her speech, Garver talked about the importance of the recent passage of the NASA authorization bill, which, while not everything the administration wanted, […]

Highlights from day 1 of ISPCS

Wednesday was the first of two days of the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The conference, now in its sixth year, started as an opening act for the X PRIZE Cup, but has now not only continued after the end of the Cup, but has grown into one […]

Does the GLXP scorecard need a new grading curve?

The web site Evadot recently published a comprehensive “team scorecard” ranking all the current teams participating in the Google Lunar X PRIZE. The scorecard lists 22 teams and their cumulative scores based on the following metrics:

Funding – 20 possible points – Measures how far along the teams are in their acquisition of funding based […]

SS2 glide test video

Some video of the test flight released overnight by Virgin Galactic, including interviews with Richard Branson and Burt Rutan:

SpaceShipTwo makes its first glide flight

SpaceShipTwo during its first glide test on October 10, 2010. (credit: Mark Greenberg/Virgin Galactic)

In a press release this afternoon, Virgin Galactic declared the glide test this morning by SpaceShipTwo a success. The WhiteKnightTwo aircraft VMS Eve released SpaceShipTwo (VSS Enterprise) at an altitude of 45,000 feet (13,700 meters), and SS2 glided to a […]

Scaled ready to begin SpaceShipTwo glide tests

[Update 2: SpaceShipTwo has successfully completed its first glide test, landing at Mojave Air and Space Port shortly after 8 am PDT (11 am EDT) Sunday morning, a little more than 10 minutes after being released by WhiteKnightTwo.]

[Update: the first glide test is indeed taking place Sunday morning; follow along at the Popular Mechanics […]