Friday, February 14, 2020
Virgin Galactic Moves Spacecraft To New Mexico
Virgin Galactic, which is developing vehicles designed to take tourists to space, has relocated its SpaceShipTwo Unity spacecraft to its new launch site, in New Mexico, as the next step along its path to being able to launch its spacecraft into space. According to Virgin Atlantic, the move process was a "captive carry flight", where the VSS Unity was attached to the VMS Eve carrier aircraft, and also allowed the company's engineers to evaluate how the arrangement between the two vehicles worked over a longer period of time than experienced during missions to space. Virgin Galactic is moving its operations from Mojave, California, to Spaceport America in New Mexico, where it says it has now moved nearly 100 of its team members, in preparation for commercial operation. Virgin Galactic says its next phase are some captive carry and glide flights, and eventually, rocket powered operation.