Virgin Galactic Says Spacecraft's Powered Flight Successful

(Bloomberg) -- Virgin Galactic Ltd. flew its VSS Unity spacecraft on a powered test flight Thursday over the California desert, reaching supersonic speed during a partial engine burn, the company said via Twitter.

The aircraft completed its seventh glide flight in January, preparing for the powered flight.
The flight on Thursday reached a speed of Mach 1.6, Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson said in a Twitter post. Future tests are planned to fly the Unity into space. “Space feels tantalizingly close now,” Branson wrote.

• The VSS Unity is dropped from a jet-engine shuttle aircraft, called Eve, at about 50,000 feet. It then ignites its rocket motor to leave earth’s atmosphere for a brief suborbital flight, before re-entry and a glider landing.
• A Virgin Galactic test pilot, Michael Alsbury, was killed in an Oct. 2014 flight accident, which prompted a company redesign of the craft’s “feathered” tail booms used for re-entry.
• Virgin Galactic plans to offer tourist flights to the edge of space from its facility at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico.
• In October, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund invested $1 billion into Virgin Group’s three US-based space firms, Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company and Virgin Orbit. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman visited Virgin Galactic’s California operation on April 2.

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Bachman in Dallas at jbachman2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Case at bcase4@bloomberg.net, Morwenna Coniam

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