On Saturday they were back at the Spaceport for [...]]]> In early December, Armadillo Aerospace successfully launched its STIG-A suborbital rocket from Spaceport America, flying to an altitude of nearly 42 kilometers before successfully returning to Earth by parachute. Shortly after that December 4 flight they released a video of the flight, shown below:

On Saturday they were back at the Spaceport for another flight of the rocket. According to a press release issued by the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) late Saturday, that flight was at least partially successful. The rocket lifted off as planned and again flew to nearly 42 kilometers, based on preliminary data. However, the release notes, the rocket’s “recovery system did not function properly after reaching its desired altitude however, the rocket was successfully retrieved after a hard landing within the predicted Spaceport America mission recover zone.” No other details about the launch, which was not publicized in advance at the request of Armadillo, have been released yet. Since the company has been open in the past about talking about tests that didn’t go as planned, though, we should hear more from them soon.

Since the NMSA press release is not up yet on the Spaceport America web site, I’ve included the text of the release below:

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 28, 2012

Armadillo Aerospace launches their third “STIG-A” rocket from Spaceport America

Upham, NM – New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) officials announced today a launch of a “STIG-A” rocket designed and built by Armadillo Aerospace. The launch took place from Spaceport America’s vertical launch complex on Saturday, January 28, 2012. The research and development test flight was a non-public, unpublished event at the request of Armadillo Aerospace, as the company is testing proprietary advanced launch technologies.

Saturday’s Armadillo launch successfully lifted off at approximately 11:15 a.m. (MDT), which was within the dedicated, five-hour launch window, and preliminary data indicates the rocket reached its projected altitude of over 137,000 feet.

The STIG-A’s recovery system did not function properly after reaching its desired altitude however, the rocket was successfully retrieved after a hard landing within the predicted Spaceport America mission recover zone.

Armadillo Aerospace plans to release additional information on today’s launch in the coming days after they have time to analyze their launch data further.

“This was the third test of the Armadillo “STIG A” reusable sub-orbital rocket technology to launch at Spaceport America. The last successful “STIG-A” was launched at the spaceport on December 4, 2011.

Today’s launch was the 14th launch from the Spaceport America vertical launch complex since 2006 and marks the 4th Armadillo Aerospace launch from the spaceport. Armadillo Aerospace has additional plans to launch from Spaceport America this year.

About Armadillo Aerospace
Founded in 2000, Armadillo Aerospace has an unequaled experience base with over 200 flight tests spread over a dozen different vehicles. The company has done work for NASA and the United States Air Force, and flown vehicles at every X-Prize Cup and Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge event, including those held in New Mexico from 2006 to 2008.
For more information, please visit www.armadilloaerospace.com.

About Spaceport America
Spaceport America has been providing commercial launch services since 2006. Phase One of the construction for the spaceport is expected to be complete in early 2012. Phase Two of the construction and pre-operations activities will follow, including the development of a world-class Visitor Experience for students, tourists and space launch customers. Officials at Spaceport America have been working closely with entrepreneurial space leaders like Armadillo Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, and UP Aerospace, as well as established aerospace firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and MOOG-FTS to develop commercial spaceflight at the new facility. The economic impact of launches, tourism and new construction at Spaceport America are already delivering on the promise of economic development to the people of New Mexico.
For more information, please visit: www.spaceportamerica.com

Tuesday’s announcement of the plans by startup Stratolaunch Systems to develop an air launch system attracted considerable attention and excitement, and understandably so. The world’s biggest airplane! A “dream team” that reunited Paul Allen and Burt Rutan for the first time since SpaceShipOne! An industry team that includes Scaled Composites and SpaceX! A [...]]]>

Tuesday’s announcement of the plans by startup Stratolaunch Systems to develop an air launch system attracted considerable attention and excitement, and understandably so. The world’s biggest airplane! A “dream team” that reunited Paul Allen and Burt Rutan for the first time since SpaceShipOne! An industry team that includes Scaled Composites and SpaceX! A board that includes not just Rutan and SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, but also former NASA administrator Mike Griffin! And did I mention the world’s biggest airplane?

However, the more I thought about it later Tuesday and into yesterday, the more questions developed in my mind about this venture. From a technical standpoint, I don’t doubt that the Stratolaunch team has the ability to develop what they’re proposing, particularly given the experience of Scaled and SpaceX. Yes, there will be complications along the way, but these companies are as well positioned as any to deal with them.

Instead, I’ve been pondering this question: what problem does this system solve? That’s the key question for any business venture, not just a launch vehicle company. What can Stratolaunch do that others can’t do, or do as well or as cheaply? Air launch has its advantages, but also carries with it some disadvantages and other issues. That, coupled with what the company has released about its technical capabilities, leads me to wonder if the Stratolaunch system will really be that competitive over more conventional launch systems in service or under active development today.

Here are a few issues to consider:

Big plane, bigger pricetag. It’s likely the single most expensive element of the Stratolaunch system will be the aircraft. The rocket will be derived from the Falcon 9, with only four or five engines and a shorter first stage (perhaps equipped with some kind of delta wing, like on the Pegasus, according to the animation), which will reduce its development costs compared to a clean-sheet design. Developing the plane the size of what they’re planning will likely cost much more, even with their plans make use of existing 747 components, from the landing gear to its jet engines.

How expensive? The company hasn’t disclosed its development costs, beyond a statement by Paul Allen at Tuesday’s press conference where he said he expected to spent “an order of magnitude more” on this than he did on SpaceShipOne. Given that he spent $28 million on SS1, according to his memoir published earlier this year, that suggests spending around $300 million or more on Stratolaunch. And that may be still too low, as $300 million is in the ballpark for what it has cost to develop WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo, a much smaller carrier aircraft and suborbital vehicle, respectively.

The Stratolaunch aircraft will be on a scale similar to the largest jetliners, like the 787 and A380, whose development each cost over $10 billion. Of course, those are passenger jetliners with significant certification costs, as well as upfront costs for construction of potentially thousands of such planes, while only one or two Stratolaunch planes, not intended (presumably) for passenger service, might ever be built.

The Airframe Cost Model provides an extremely basic cost model for aircraft development based on empty weight and speed. Those details aren’t available for this plane (only the gross takeoff weight, 1.2 million pounds or 540,000 kilograms, is given), but assuming a modest empty weight of 250,000 pounds—about the same as the considerably smaller 787—and a top speed of 300 knots, the model yields, for one test aircraft and one production model, a total cost of $4.7 billion (in 2004 dollars). That is almost certainly far too high: the model is based on the production of older military aircraft, including the giant C-5 cargo plane, and Scaled is likely more efficient and able to make use of more advanced technologies to reduce costs. The question, though, is the model is off by a factor of ten, or only a factor of five or less?

How flexible is air launch? One of the advantages touted by air launch proponents is the flexibility to launch from a wide range of locations. You don’t need the fixed infrastructure of a launch pad; instead, just take off from your desired airport, point the plane in the right direction, and fire off the rocket. No worries about coordinating range availability with other rockets or maintaining expensive launch pad equipment. Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Pegasus, the most successful orbital air launch system, has demonstrated that flexibility by flying from several airports from the US and overseas.

However, the sheer size of Stratolaunch—far larger than Pegasus, which uses a converted L-1011 jumbo jet—will limit that flexibility. The aircraft requires a 12,000-foot (3,650-meter) runway, sharply limiting the number of airports in the US or elsewhere it can take off from. In addition, unless the first stage is reusable and designed to fly back (which it does not appear to be from the animation), the launch will have to take place over open water or very remote unpopulated areas, further limiting the airports to those in range of those drop zones. It’s no wonder, then, that the press release identified Kennedy Space Center as one possible launch site, given its five-kilometer-long Shuttle Landing Facility runway and access to the Eastern Range.

Moreover, any airport that Stratolaunch operates from will need some infrastructure that may be unique to that system. That will include a hangar large enough to accommodate the plane’s 385-foot (117-meter) wingspan, as well as propellant storage (RP-1 and LOX for the rocket) and equipment to integrate the payload onto the launch vehicle, and the launch vehicle onto the aircraft. That suggests that the plane will likely operate from only a handful of sites unless the company can find a way to scale back those equipment requirements.

A limited market. Stratolaunch advertises that the rocket can place up to 13,500 pounds (6,100 kilograms) into orbit. The specific orbit isn’t mentioned, but it’s most likely a favorable low-inclination due-east orbit, with decreased capacities for polar and sun-synchronous orbits as well as geosynchronous orbit. That makes it comparable to the Delta 2 Heavy, the most powerful versions of that vehicle that is on the verge of retirement. While Allen and others at Tuesday’s press conference brought up the idea of eventually flying crewed spacecraft, initially their focus is on launching satellites.

The problem is that this may well be a limited market. “There is a thriving communications satellite market for small to medium-class communications satellites,” Mike Griffin said at the press conference. However, a vehicle with this stated LEO capacity can likely carry satellites weighing no more than about 2 tons to GEO; the communications satellite market today is dominated by much larger satellites, with virtually nothing that small being built today. See, for example, the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts report for more data, in particular Figure 5 and Table 5, which shows only about 1 commercial GEO satellite a year with a mass less than 2,500 kilograms projected for launch through 2020.

A more likely market is for civil and military government satellites, of which Griffin estimates that there are about a half-dozen a year that previously flew on Delta 2. However, by the time Stratolaunch enters service, no earlier than 2016, Orbital’s Antares (née Taurus 2) rocket will have been in service for some time, serving that market; even SpaceX’s Falcon 9, while more capable, may attract customers with such satellites at its currently-advertised launch costs. There are also international options for non-US Government customers, like the Soyuz (now launching from French Guiana in addition to Russia and Kazakhstan), Land Launch’s Zenit-3SLB, and the Angara that is still under development in Russia.

It may turn out that Stratolaunch can beat out those other vehicles on price when it is introduced. (Company officials haven’t disclosed a target launch price for the vehicle.) However, given the inelastic nature of many of these existing markets, a lower-priced alternative may not stimulate much, if any, additional demand. This would force Stratolaunch to compete head-to-head with other companies (including potentially SpaceX) for the limited number of launch opportunities in this portion of the market.

This analysis is incomplete, primarily because it’s based on the limited technical and business information provided by Stratolaunch so far—a luxury it has thanks to the financial backing of Allen. There may be missing pieces to its business plan that make this system far less expensive to develop and operate and far more competitive in the global launch market than this analysis suggests, particularly if it can move into human spaceflight markets. Otherwise, despite being an interesting technical concept backed by an impressive team, Stratolaunch may not be that compelling in the long run.

Late last week members of the media received a notice of a press conference at 2 pm EST (1900 GMT) Tuesday about a new space travel venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. No other details were provided until a short time ago, when Allen announced via Twitter that “I have an [...]]]>

Late last week members of the media received a notice of a press conference at 2 pm EST (1900 GMT) Tuesday about a new space travel venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen. No other details were provided until a short time ago, when Allen announced via Twitter that “I have an exciting space related announcement shortly” with a link to the video above.

The video is for a relatively new venture called Stratolaunch Systems. (Relatively new since the web site apparently has been public for some time, with a couple of older press releases available.) The company is pursuring an air-launch system, but on a scale never before attempted: a modified Falcon rocket, built by SpaceX, launched from a six-engine dual-fuselage aircraft that the company says “will be the largest aircraft ever flown.” The aircraft will be built by Scaled Composites, with Dynetics providing a “state-of-the-art mating and integration system”. The system will focus initially on launching satellites, but doesn’t rule out human missions as well.

The full press release from the company’s site is below, with more details to follow after today’s press conference:

PAUL G. ALLEN ANNOUNCES REVOLUTION IN SPACE TRANSPORTATION STRATOLAUNCH SYSTEM TO BRING SAFER, LESS EXPENSIVE, MISSIONS

SEATTLE, WA, Dec 13, 2011 – Entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul G. Allen announced today that he and aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan have reunited to develop the next generation of space travel. Allen and Rutan, whose SpaceShipOne was the first privately-funded, manned rocket ship to fly beyond earth’s atmosphere, are developing a revolutionary approach to space transportation: an air-launch system to provide orbital access to space with greater safety, cost-effectiveness and flexibility.

The space flight revolution Allen and Rutan pioneered in 2004 with SpaceShipOne now enters a new era. Only months after the last shuttle flight closed an important chapter in spaceflight, Allen is stepping in with an ambitious effort to continue America’s drive for space.

“I have long dreamed about taking the next big step in private space flight after the success of SpaceShipOne – to offer a flexible, orbital space delivery system,” Allen said. “We are at the dawn of radical change in the space launch industry. Stratolaunch Systems is pioneering an innovative solution that will revolutionize space travel.”

Allen’s new company, Stratolaunch Systems, will build a mobile launch system with three primary components:

• A carrier aircraft, developed by Scaled Composites, the aircraft manufacturer and assembler founded by Rutan. It will be the largest aircraft ever flown.
• A multi-stage booster, manufactured by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies;
• A state-of-the-art mating and integration system allowing the carrier aircraft to safely carry a booster weighing up to 490,000 pounds. It will be built by Dynetics, a leader in the field of aerospace engineering.

Stratolaunch Systems will bring airport-like operations to the launch of commercial and government payloads and, eventually, human missions. Plans call for a first flight within five years. The air-launch-to-orbit system will mean lower costs, greater safety, and more flexibility and responsiveness than is possible today with ground-based systems. Stratolaunch’s quick turnaround between launches will enable new orbital missions as well as break the logjam of missions queued up for launch facilities and a chance at space. Rutan, who has joined Stratolaunch Systems as a board member, said he was thrilled to be back working with Allen. “Paul and I pioneered private space travel with SpaceShipOne, which led to Virgin Galactic’s commercial suborbital SpaceShipTwo Program. Now, we will have the opportunity to extend that capability to orbit and beyond. Paul has proven himself a visionary with the will, commitment and courage to continue pushing the boundaries of space technology. We are well aware of the challenges ahead, but we have put together an incredible research team that will draw inspiration from Paul’s vision.”

To lead the Stratolaunch Systems team, Allen picked a veteran NASA official with years of experience in engineering, management and human spaceflight. Stratolaunch Systems CEO and President Gary Wentz, a former chief engineer at NASA, said the system’s design will revolutionize space travel.

Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, also a Stratolaunch board member, joined Allen and Rutan at a press conference in Seattle to announce the project. “We believe this technology has the potential to someday make spaceflight routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground launched rockets,” Griffin said. “Our system will also provide the flexibility to launch from a large variety of locations.”

The Stratolaunch system will eventually have the capability of launching people into low earth orbit. But the company is taking a building block approach in development of the launch aircraft and booster, with initial efforts focused on unmanned payloads. Human flights will follow, after safety, reliability and operability are demonstrated.

The carrier aircraft will operate from a large airport/spaceport, such as Kennedy Space Center, and will be able to fly up to 1,300 nautical miles to the payload’s launch point.

It will use six 747 engines, have a gross weight of more than 1.2 million pounds and a wingspan of more than 380 feet. For takeoff and landing, it will require a runway 12,000 feet long. Systems onboard the launch aircraft will conduct the countdown and firing of the booster and will monitor the health of the orbital payload.

The plane will be built in a Stratolaunch hangar which will soon be under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port. It will be near where Scaled Composites built SpaceShipOne which won Allen and Scaled Composites the $10-million Ansari X Prize in 2004 after three successful sub-orbital flights. Scaled Composites is a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman.

“Scaled is all about achieving milestones and pursuing breakthroughs, and this project offers both – building the largest airplane in the world, and achieving the manufacturing breakthroughs that will enable Scaled to accomplish it. We are thrilled to be a part of this development program,” said Scaled Composites President Doug Shane. “We anticipate significant hiring of engineering, manufacturing, and support staff in the near and medium term.”

The multi-stage booster will be manufactured by California-based Space Exploration Technologies, one of the world’s pre-eminent space transportation companies. “Paul Allen and Burt Rutan helped generate enormous interest in space with White Knight and SpaceShipOne,” said SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell. “There was no way we weren’t going to be involved in their next great endeavor. We are very excited.”

Dynetics will provide the mating and integration system and the systems engineering, integration, test and operations support for the entire air-launch system. The mating and integration system will be manufactured in Huntsville, Alabama in Dynetics’ new 226,500 square foot prototyping facility. Dynetics has been a leader in aerospace engineering since 1974. “We are excited to play such a major role on this system. This is an ambitious project unlike any that has been undertaken and I am confident the Stratolaunch team has the experience and capabilities to accomplish the mission,” said Dynetics Executive Vice President and Stratolaunch Board Member David King.

Stratolaunch Systems’ corporate headquarters is located in Huntsville, Alabama. Today’s announcement was the first public word that Allen and Rutan were back in the space business. But space has long been on Allen’s mind. In the close of his memoir, Idea Man, published earlier this year, he hinted at his plans, writing that he was “considering a new initiative with that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship.”

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced Monday that it has renamed the Taurus 2 rocket it’s been developing as part of its commercial cargo system. Henceforth, the rocket will now be called Antares. “We are [...]]]>

Illustration of Orbital's Antares (formerly Taurus 2) rocket lifting off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) in Virginia. (Credit: OSC)

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced Monday that it has renamed the Taurus 2 rocket it’s been developing as part of its commercial cargo system. Henceforth, the rocket will now be called Antares. “We are transitioning to the Antares identity primarily because a launch vehicle of this scale and significance deserves its own name, just like Orbital’s Pegasus, Taurus and Minotaur rocket programs that have come before it,” Orbital president and CEO David Thompson explained in a press release.

The name keeps with the company’s tradition of “Greek-derived celestial names” for its launch vehicles, which have included Pegasus, Taurus, and Minotaur. Antares, the company adds in “microsite” for the launch vehicle, is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and “we expect the Antares rocket to be one of the brightest stars in the space launch vehicle market.” (Antares, though, is a supergiant star, whereas the rocket is designed for medium-class payloads.) Antares also has a bit of space history: it was the name of the lunar module for Apollo 14. However, it was also the name of a fictional starship in an episode of the original Star Trek series that met its demise at the hands (or, rather, mind) of a teenager with psychokinetic powers. (Is there anyone named Charlie Evans working on the Antares program?)

Orbital adds that the name change will “clear up any marketplace confusion and provide clear differentiation between this new launch vehicle and our Taurus XL rocket.” That’s important, because the Antares is a very different rocket from the smaller, all-solid-fuel Taurus XL. Companies in the past have kept names even after major—even complete—design changes: for example, the Delta 2 has little in common with the Delta 4 beyond the name. However, given that the Taurus XL suffered failures in its last two launches, a rebranding avoids any potentially uncomfortable comparisons for Orbital as it prepares for the first launch of the new Antares.

Sir Richard Branson’s space-tourism company won’t start passenger flights for at least two more years and operations will ramp up significantly more slowly than previously anticipated, according to its chief pilot.

In an interview, David [...]]]> Here are the first two paragraphs of a Wall Street Journal article about Virgin Galactic, published last night:

Sir Richard Branson’s space-tourism company won’t start passenger flights for at least two more years and operations will ramp up significantly more slowly than previously anticipated, according to its chief pilot.

In an interview, David Mackay said Virgin Galactic, the venture controlled by the British billionaire, likely won’t begin commercial flights until 2013.

First of all, the two paragraphs are at least potentially contradictory. Starting commercial flights in 2013 doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t start “for at least two more years”, given it’s October 2011: it’s entirely possible that they could start in early 2013, which would imply a delay of a little over one year, not at least two years. (They could, of course, start in late 2013, which would be closer to two years, but Mackay doesn’t provide a specific enough date to make the conclusion in the article’s lede.)

The second issue is that this delay should not be considered a surprise. Pronouncements in recent weeks and months indicated that commercial service would start, at best, in late 2012, with 2013 as a more likely date. For example, Virgin Galactic president and CEO George Whitesides said at the beginning of this month that the company would “try to get to some definition of space by the end of next year”, implying that they would still be performing test flights at the end of 2012.

What is true is that Virgin’s announced date for the beginning of commercial service has been a moving target, one that has been regularly moving to the right. When Virgin’s partnership with Scaled Composites was announced on the eve of Scaled’s X PRIZE-winning flights in September 2004, Virgin was expected to begin commercial flight by2007, a date that has gradually slipped to now 2013. That delay likely has several reasons, including the decision to develop a larger SpaceShipTwo as opposed to a version of the original SpaceShipOne, the July 2007 engine test accident in Mojave that killed three Scaled employees, and usual development delays. (Funding, presumably, has been less of an issue, given Virgin’s resources and outside investment from Aabar.) However, should those schedule slips continue, there will be new questions about Virgin’s ability to follow through on its commercial suborbital plans, and those delays create new opportunities for competitors, like XCOR Aerospace, to close the gap and even begin flights before Virgin.

It was the biggest line of the day—and Sir Richard Branson flubbed it.

Branson was dangling from the balcony Spaceport America’s new terminal building, halfway down the building’s glass [...]]]>

Sir Richard Branson, dangling from the top of Spaceport America's new terminal building, dedicates the building with a bottle of champagne. (credit: J. Foust)

It was the biggest line of the day—and Sir Richard Branson flubbed it.

Branson was dangling from the balcony Spaceport America’s new terminal building, halfway down the building’s glass wall. He and his son and daughter had joined a dance company, Project Bandaloop, for their performance on the building’s wall. After the dancers and Branson’s children rappelled down to the ground, Branson remained in place, and then had an oversized champagne bottle lowered to him so he could formally dedicate, and name, the building. “And, the name is, whoa!” he said as he uncorked the bottle, “Virgin Galactic Galactic.” And then, after a six-second pause, “Gateway to Space!”

While there was laughter and cheers from the several hundred people in attendance (“more than 800″, according to Virgin), some were left scratching their heads. “What did he say the name was?” one person in the media section asked. “Something about a gateway to space, I think,” said another. The building’s name, in fact, is now officially the “Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space.”

That, though, was a minor glitch in an event designed primarily to show off the spaceport and demonstrate Virgin’s continued commitment to flying SpaceShipTwo from the spaceport in the near future. The new name for the terminal building was one of the few new developments from the event. Virgin did announce some new research customers, including the Challenger Center (whose founder, June Scobee Rodgers, was in attendance). Virgin also announced its first hire for a new group of commercial pilots who will fly WK2 and SS2: Keith Colmer, an Air Force pilot who had previously applied to NASA’s astronaut corps but just missed the cut.

WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo take off from Spaceport America's runway on a brief captive carry flight over the spaceport. (credit: J. Foust)

At a “press conference” during the event (which, despite the name, did not allow any questions from the media), Virgin Galactic officials played up the progress they’ve made in the last year and sought to set themselves apart from the competition. “There is no other company that is as close to flying people to space as Galactic,” said Virgin Galactic president and CEO George Whitesides. “There is no one else test flying vehicles that can take you and me into space. And there is no one whose vehicles are based on a design that has already been safely to space to people,” a reference to SS2′s precursor, SpaceShipOne.

WK2 and SS2 soar over Spaceport America's new terminal building. (credit: J. Foust)

New Mexico officials at the event, including Governor Susana Martinez and Congressman Steve Pearce, focused on the economic benefits of the spaceport, including both the jobs created during the spaceport’s construction and those that will be created when the spaceport begins operations. Martinez in particular saw the spaceport as both a way to inspire the state’s youth to study science and engineering, as well as a source of high-tech jobs. “As a young child, what could be more exciting than space travel?” she asked. “We want these new jobs to be created right here so that young New Mexicans don’t have to leave the state to find fulfilling work.”

Martinez, who past comments suggested she was at least somewhat skeptical about the $200-million investment in the spaceport, sounded a little excited herself about the spaceport. “I look forward to strengthening the partnership between the state and Virgin Galactic,” she said. Turning to Branson, she added, “And Richard, today I may have to add it to my bucket list.”

Virgin didn’t offer any new clues yesterday on when it will begin flights from Spaceport America. “Our contractors are working hard now to get the system ready for the first powered flights next year,” Whitesides said, a timeline similar to what he said early this month. He did add that another full-scale ground test of SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor is planned “very soon”.

Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space, the new terminal building at Spaceport America. (credit: J. Foust)

The fact that Virgin is still some time from beginning flights at Spaceport America is perhaps a relief to New Mexico, since the “Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space”, while formally dedicated yesterday, isn’t quite done. Walk up to that distinctive glass wall—which, in the bright sunlight, acts like a mirror—and peer inside, and you see that the interior rooms that will host Virgin Galactic’s operations, astronaut lounge, and other facilities, are still unfurnished, with the walls and floors completely bare. In one case, a door leading into the building was still lacking a handle. However, the building can already serve one its primary purposes: serving as a hangar for WK2 and SS2, which is where they vehicles were housed Sunday when spaceport executive director Christine Anderson saw them for the first time. “It was so awesome to see that,” she said. “Then I thought, ‘Wow, it fits in the hangar. Super!’”

Virgin appeared very pleased with the building and its unique design, as well as its environmentally-friendly characteristics that won it a LEED Gold rating. “Simply put,” Branson said, “it is a 21st century building for a 21st century business.”