Virgin Galactic has just made its first actual trip to space, the firm says. SpaceShipTwo, the craft that the company says will eventually take tourists and science projects into space, has had a successful test flight taking it to the highest altitude it鈥檚 ever reached.
SpaceShipTwo is a rocket plane that is shuttled high into the atmosphere by a larger aircraft called WhiteKnightTwo before it is released. In this flight, the spacecraft was carried to an altitude of about 13,100 metres before firing its own engines for聽one minute 鈥� longer than on any previous flight.
The goal of the flight was to officially reach space, a boundary that is much-debated. The US military awards the United States Astronaut Badge to those who reach 50 miles, or about 80 kilometres, from the surface. As such, Virgin Galactic is considering SpaceShipTwo鈥檚 flight, which reached 82.7 kilometres up, a successful first trip to space.
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But the internationally recognised boundary edge of space is the Karman line, 100 kilometres up, so it is questionable whether or not SpaceShipTwo鈥檚 actually achieved Virgin Galactic鈥檚 stated goal.
In October,聽Virgin Galactic鈥檚 founder Richard Branson said 鈥渨e should be in space within weeks, not months,鈥� and that he himself would be going to space aboard SpaceShipTwo 鈥渋n months, not years.鈥� He may not have quite made those deadlines, but prospects are looking good 鈥� depending on how you define 鈥渟pace.鈥�
Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004. It has faced problems in recent years, notably a crash during a 2014 test flight that killed one of the pilots and badly injured the other. It resumed testing in 2016, and as of today has actually started earning money 鈥� NASA paid for a few experiments to tag along on the flight.
