Questions tagged [virgin-galactic]
Virgin Galactic is a commercial space tourism company run by Sir Richard Branson. The launch system they have developed involves White Knight Two (carrier aircraft) and Space Ship Two (rocket powered craft carrying tourists). Use for questions about the spacecraft portion only. Questions about the aircraft functions may be asked on Aviation.SE
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Is Delta the same as SpaceShip III and if not, has SpaceShip III been de facto cancelled?
In the recent months, Virgin Galactic is talking about some Delta spaceship that is about to launch space tourists every week. They want to retire the SpaceShipTwo this year and shall begin flight ...
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Why is the SpaceShipTwo being released from 44,300 ft, not from 50,000 ft as originally anticipated?
The VSS Unity is always released at an altitude of 44,300 ft (13.5 km) from the VMS Eve. The SpaceShipTwo was originally anticipated to be released at 50,000 ft (15.2 km) and many media still report ...
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Why did the Virgin One launch fail?
What caused the early shutdown of Virgin rocket's upper stage? The previous failure was also due to early shutdown of engine, although that was first stage failure. As per reports available in public, ...
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Can the Virgin Galactic's feathered rentry system be used for first stage recovery?
The stage seperation for Falcon 9's heaviest launch on 28 August 2022 was at approx 75km altitude and at a speed of 8000km/h.
Virgin Galactic's Spaceship two has a max speed of 4000km/h and a max ...
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Do forward thinking launch providers like SpaceX, Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic fund any carbon nanotube research?
Elon Musk has indicated (ex.: Tweet) that he has little interest in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with respect to the concept of an orbital elevator, claiming in essence that the development is simply not ...
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Why did Blue Origin make 5 times more flight tests than Virgin Galactic before sending their founders (Jeff Bezos for BO, R. Branson for VG) to space?
https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1413521631717122059 (mirror):
Why did Blue Origin make 5 times more flight tests than Virgin Galactic before sending their founders (Jeff Bezos for BO, Richard ...
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Why does Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo need a carrier airplane?
Why is a carrier airplane (White Knight Two) used for launching Virgin Galactic's spaceship? Isn't it possible for the spaceship to take off from the ground?
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Virgin Galatic's Weightlessness [duplicate]
Is the gravity pull of the Earth negligible at 50 miles up, or is the weightlessness experience just relative to a falling airframe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft
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What's The Gas Discharge After Landing Finished For SpaceShip2?
What's the gas discharge after landing finished For SpaceShip2?
Why did they did it right after landing finished while crew were on board.
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Why did Unity 22 flight plan call for such a large horizontal velocity during its weightless phase? (1085 kph) Why not go straight up instead?
A quick check of the videos shows Unity 22's apogee of over 86 km, and at that point the displayed speed is 674 mph or about 1085 kph or 18.1 km per minute. During the four minutes of being weightless ...
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Unity 22's ground track; which direction was it moving horizontally at 1085 kph during its weightless phase?
update: According to The Newyorker's The Red Warning Light on Richard Branson’s Space Flight there is FR24 data available.
A quick check of the videos shows Virgin Galactic's Unity 22's apogee of over ...
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Does the US government plan to issue "Astronaut Wings" for anyone passing 80 km forever?
Related and potentially helpful here: What kind of badge will tourists who performed a sub-orbital spaceflight receive? but here I'm asking specifically about the US government's future plans.
The BBC'...
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Why does Unity look transparent?
The BBC's Virgin Galactic: Sir Richard Branson rockets to the edge of space includes the image below.
Much of the Unity spacecraft appears (almost) transparent in this image; you can see the blue sky ...
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What are Virgin Galactic Space Suits for? What do they do? What don't they do?
In the CNN video linked below the reporter mentions to Unity 22's Astronaut 004 Sirisha Bandla:
When people think of Virgin Galactic, they’re thinking of giving people new astronaut wings like the ...
user12102
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Why does Blue Origin claim Virgin Galactic's spaceplane doesn’t have an escape system whereas Virgin Galactic's passengers are wearing parachutes?
https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1413521631717122059 (mirror):
vs. https://space.stackexchange.com/a/54072/1111 by John Thomas:
[Virgin Galactic's passengers] do appear to be wearing parachutes....
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