Parts of this article (those related to July 11, 2021 news) need to be updated.(July 2021) |
VMS Eve | |
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VMS Eve's maiden flight | |
Role | Spaceship carrier / launcher |
National origin | United States |
Manufacturer | Scaled Composites |
Designer | Robert Morgan, James Tighe [1] [2] |
First flight | 21 December 2008 |
Primary user | Virgin Galactic |
Number built | 1 |
Developed from | White Knight One |
Type | WhiteKnightTwo |
Construction number | 001 |
Registration | N348MS |
VMS Eve (Tail number: N348MS [3] ) is a carrier mothership for Virgin Galactic and launch platform for SpaceShipTwo-based Virgin SpaceShips.
VMS Eve was built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. The "VMS" prefix stands for "Virgin MotherShip". [4]
The aircraft was named after Evette Branson, the mother of Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group. The jet plane has nose art of a blonde woman holding a banner with the Virgin Galactic logo. [5] The image is based on how Evette Branson looked when she was younger and is called Galactic Girl. [6] The aircraft was officially launched on July 28, 2008, in Mojave, California, the United States, at the Mojave Spaceport, home of Scaled Composites. On December 12, 2008, the aircraft performed first taxi tests, [7] and a week later the maiden flight. [8] Eve is being used in the Virgin Galactic testflight program, preceding entry into commercial usage. [9]
Burt Rutan has dismissed fears that pressurization cycles might induce fatigue failure in the composite structure. [10] Richard Branson has also announced that it will be highly fuel efficient. [11]
The initial flight occurred on 21 December 2008, after an initial low speed taxi test was carried out at Mojave [12] followed by a high speed taxi on 16 December. [13] By September 2009 the flight envelope was extended to 50000 feet. [14] as of 19 September 2014 [update] the total flight time for WhiteKnightTwo is 333.96 hours.
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest and longest nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period.
The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of 2,801 feet (854 m). It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the Federal Aviation Administration on June 17, 2004. The facility covers 2,998 acres and has three runways.
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Virgin Galactic is a spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic's maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010, but the date was delayed for several years, and then delayed again, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
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The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic.
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RocketMotorTwo (RM2) is a family of hybrid rocket engines developed for the Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane.
Evette Huntley Branson was a British philanthropist, child welfare advocate, and the mother of Richard Branson.
The VSS Enterprise crash occurred on October 31, 2014, when the VSS Enterprise, a SpaceShipTwo experimental spaceflight test vehicle operated by Virgin Galactic, suffered a catastrophic in-flight breakup during a test flight and crashed in the Mojave Desert near Cantil, California. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed and pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured.
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Source: Flight International
Source: Flight International
Source: Flight International