{"id":38910,"date":"2011-09-04T15:43:52","date_gmt":"2011-09-04T15:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/another-step-forward-for-spaceshiptwo%e2%80%99s-rocket-motor\/"},"modified":"2011-09-04T15:43:52","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T15:43:52","slug":"another-step-forward-for-spaceshiptwo%e2%80%99s-rocket-motor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/space-flight\/another-step-forward-for-spaceshiptwo%e2%80%99s-rocket-motor.php","title":{"rendered":"Another step forward for SpaceShipTwo\u2019s rocket motor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you go to Virgin Galactic&#8217;s web site today you&#8217;ll see a release about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virgingalactic.com\/news\/item\/captain-mackay-takes-to-the-sky\/\">the first flight of WhiteKnightTwo by Virgin Galactic chief test pilot David Mackay<\/a>, which took place yesterday in Mojave.  &#8220;I was able to fly WhiteKnight through the full extent of its flight envelope\u2014to its maximum altitude, speed and crosswind limit\u2014so it was a very thorough first look,&#8221; he said in the statement, which also indicated he would be making more test flights of the carrier aircraft for SpaceShipTwo in the coming months.<\/p>\n<p>A bigger milestone, though, may have been a few days earlier.  According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scaled.com\/projects\/rocketmotortwo_hot-fire_test_summaries\">Scaled Composites&#8217;s test summaries<\/a>, Scaled and Sierra Nevada Corporation performed on Sunday a &#8220;full duration hot-fire&#8221; of the rocket motor that will power SpaceShipTwo on its suborbital flights.  The 55-second burn appeared to be a success, according to the brief summary, which indicated that &#8220;all objectives [were] completed&#8221; in the test. The engine test was the seventh for the full-scale &#8220;RocketMotorTwo&#8221; engine, and the first in five months.<\/p>\n<p>The slow development of SpaceShipTwo&#8217;s rocket motor has been a major factor in the delays involved in getting the vehicle ready for test flights.  &#8220;They&#8217;ve had to scale up the hybrid from a relatively smaller version to a bigger version,&#8221; George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, said at the NewSpace 2011 conference at NASA Ames at the end of July. &#8220;We&#8217;ve seen some good progress over the summer,&#8221; he added. &#8220;We expect to be flying into space next year.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you go to Virgin Galactic&#8217;s web site today you&#8217;ll see a release about the first flight of WhiteKnightTwo by Virgin Galactic chief test pilot David Mackay, which took place yesterday in Mojave. &#8220;I was able to fly WhiteKnight through &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/space-flight\/another-step-forward-for-spaceshiptwo%e2%80%99s-rocket-motor.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-38910","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\/38910"}],"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=38910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}