Virgin Galactic wants to make sure people know its first powered SpaceShipTwo (SS2) flight is coming soon. Yesterday the company tweeted a photo of what it called the second “in a short series of final tests” of the vehicle’s hybrid rocket motor prior to that first flight:
The 2nd in short series of final tests prior to SS2’s 1st rocket-powered flight. <3 the photo, <3 the data even more. twitter.com/virgingalactic…
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) March 13, 2013
The company didn’t provide any additional information about the test, including even when exactly it took place beyond that it took place last Friday, March 8 (according to the caption on a Facebook posting of the photo, as a reader noted in the comments to this post.) Last week Virgin announced the first test in this series, which took place February 28, via a blog post by Sir Richard Branson. That test, although not the one the company announced yesterday, now appears on the RocketMotorTwo test log.
Exciting times, hopefully the first powered flight will take place soon and we can expect to see SpaceShipTwo working towards hops into space. Any idea why there has been such a long delay? Have they had problems with the rocket?
I imagine the original intention would have been to get the rocket ready in parallel with the glide test program.
The Facebook caption says “This photo from last Friday …”.
Thank you, Ishmael.
I should have added that it was Newspace Watch that directed me to the Facebook entry.
[…] there may be just one more glide test before SpaceShipTwo ignites its rocket motor in flight. Virgin has also been publicizing a series of static fire tests of the rocket motor, the most recent of which took place on March 30, according to its test logs. […]