{"id":28878,"date":"2010-10-10T21:22:05","date_gmt":"2010-10-10T21:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/spaceshiptwo-makes-its-first-glide-flight\/"},"modified":"2010-10-10T21:22:05","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T21:22:05","slug":"spaceshiptwo-makes-its-first-glide-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/space-flight\/spaceshiptwo-makes-its-first-glide-flight.php","title":{"rendered":"SpaceShipTwo makes its first glide flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/b490d_ss2-firstglide.jpg\" alt=\"SS2 first glide test\" width=\"400\" height=\"247\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1262\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><p>SpaceShipTwo during its first glide test on October 10, 2010. (credit: Mark Greenberg\/Virgin Galactic)<\/p><\/div><p>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 landing at Mojave Air and Space Port 11 minutes later, shortly after 8 am PDT (11 am EDT).  Pete Siebold piloted SS2 with Mike Alsbury as co-pilot; Sieblod, in the release, declared SS2 &ldquo;a real joy to fly&rdquo;.<\/p><p>Some details about the flight test activities from the press release:<\/p><blockquote><p>Other detailed objectives of the flight were successfully completed, including; verification that all systems worked prior and following the clean release of Enterprise; initial evaluation of handling and stall characteristics; qualitative evaluation of stability and control of SS2 against predictions from design and simulation work; verification of performance by evaluating the lift-to-drag ratio of the spaceship during glide flight; practice a landing approach at altitude and finally descend and land.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Virgin also used the flight test to announce a four-part documentary series with the National Geographic Channel about the development of SpaceShipTwo.  The first part will air next Monday, October 18, at 10 pm EDT\/PDT to cover the work leading to Sunday&rsquo;s glide test.  Later parts of the documentary, according to the announcement, &ldquo;will include SpaceShipTwo&rsquo;s first rocket-powered flight; following Rutan, Branson and his two children as they make preparations for their historic flight; and being there as the spaceliner&rsquo;s first passengers take their incredible trip.&rdquo;<\/p><p>Finally, a picture below showing the release of SS2.  Look carefully at the pylon between the fuselages of WK2 where SS2 was mounted.  Have a nice flight?<\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-o-matic\/cache\/b490d_ss2-firstglide-release.jpg\" alt=\"SS2 immediately after release from WK2\" width=\"400\" height=\"493\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1264\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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) &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/space-flight\/spaceshiptwo-makes-its-first-glide-flight.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-flight"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}