The VSS Unity spacecraft made the second flight at supersonic speed, the American company Virgin Galactic reports. The tests, recognized as successful, were held May 29, 2018 at the training ground in the Mojave Desert (California).
During the tests, the ship separated from the carrier aircraft WhiteKnightTwo, after which it switched on the rocket engine for 31 seconds, developing a speed of 1.9 Mach numbers (2267 km / h) and gaining a height of about 35 kilometers.
The purpose of the VSS Unity tests was to test the ship's flight control systems in a supersonic mode. In recent tests, passenger seats and related equipment were integrated into the spaceplane.
The first tests of VSS Unity in supersonic mode took place on April 5, 2018. Then the ship managed to develop a speed of 1.87 Mach numbers (2231 km / h). The previous 11 flights of the spaceplane, conducted since February 2016, passed without the inclusion of a rocket engine.
The VSS Unity suborbital manned spacecraft was introduced in February 2016 as an advanced model of VSS Enterprise, which crashed in October 2014 due to a pilot error. VSS Unity and VSS Enterprise are models of the second and first generations of SpaceShipTwo, respectively.
Developed by Scaled Composites and the spacecraft built by The Spaceship Company, the Virgin Galactic spacecraft is designed for suborbital tourist flights. The cost of such a trip for each of the six passengers is estimated at 200 thousand dollars. Virgin Galactic is hoping to begin commercial use of VSS Unity as early as 2018.