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Aiming for the stars – First Feather

The SpaceShipTwo Story – Episode 3

© by Virgin Galactic / YouTube

Source | Virgin Galactic / YouTube | 07 March 2024 1 minute
What are the basic ideas behind one of the most interesting projects in the world that are currently being developed? VSS Unity Project Engineer Gabe Williams describes VSS Unity’s unique “feather” re-entry system and compares its functioning to a Badminton birdie. “The best way to prove that something really works is to go in there and try it”, he states, and that’s what the Virgin Group has been doing with this challenging project all along. It is breathtaking to watch the spacecraft being dropped by the twin planes into midair like a piece of cargo. Virgin Galactic is a spaceflight company that develops commercial spacecraft that one day will enable suborbital spaceflights and suborbital launces to regular space tourists. So regular space travel as we know it from various Hollywood productions will one day certainly become reality despite quite a few setbacks in recent years. While Sir Richard Branson had initially hoped to experience a maiden flight of this aircraft by the end of 2009, this date had to be delayed several times on a number of occasions, most recently due to in-flight loss of SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise in October 2014. But Virgin Galactic is not a quitter and is continuing its quest for “democratizing access to space for the benefit of life on Earth”. For more please check out www.virgingalactic.com