Richard Branson resumes test flights new spaceship

mojave - Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's company for space tourism, has again started test flights of a new spaceship. The pilot plane VSS Unity flew to more than 25 kilometers altitude and then landed safely on earth. It was the first test flight since a fatal accident in 2014.

The flight was performed on Thursday over California. The spaceship Unity hung under an airplane. Together they went up. At 14 kilometers, the plane dropped the spaceship. The pilots set up the rocket engines and went up by 2300 kilometers per hour. After half a minute the engine was switched off, after which the return started.

The intention is that the spaceship will be 100 kilometers above the earth. Then it is officially in space and passengers are recognized as astronauts. They can then loosen their belts and float around for a few minutes without weight. Then the spaceship sinks back to earth. They do not come into orbit around the earth.

The Unity is the successor to the previous spaceship, the VSS Enterprise. It broke up in pieces in October 2014 after starting the rocket engine. The braking system appeared to have been taken on early. The co-pilot was killed, the pilot was able to bring himself to safety from a height of 15 kilometers with a parachute.

Virgin Galactic, founded in 2004, was a pioneer in commercial space travel. However, the company has been outdone in recent years by competitors like SpaceX from Elon Musk.

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