Future space tourists have a reason for joy: now they are one step closer to the long-awaited flight. Spacecraft Richard Branson SpaceShipTwo (SS2) made a successful test flight, writes Futurism. The ship was raised to a height of 15 kilometers by a two-body WhiteKnightTwo carrier. The American aircraft company Scaled Composites built it specifically for the launch of the SpaceShipTwo. At the maximum height, the plane dropped SS2 and the aircraft went into the planning mode. This is already a similar test for the ship, and Branson says that the last. Now it's time to light the engines again.. The company has stopped flights with the started engines in 2014. Then during the test of new fuel, the ship collapsed a few seconds after disconnecting from WhiteKnightTwo. One pilot suffered a lot, but managed to catapult, another was killed. Since then, the engines have not started. But the next SS2 flights should again be full, because the engine will run at full power. Now the plane dispersed the ship to a speed of 0.9 Mach or 1100 km / h - this is the ultimate, according to documents, the speed at which the ship can fly with the engines turned off.

The company recognized the test as a success, everything went according to plan, which means that tourist flights are getting closer. On the successful test, Branson wrote in his Twitter. Since the flight took place with the hybrid rocket engines turned off, there was no fuel for safety. To simulate it, a ballast of similar mass was used. At an altitude of 7 km the ballast was dropped, depicting the burning of fuel and the relief of the ship. As a result, the spacecraft made a soft landing.

Original article: Virgin Galactic successfully tested tourist spaceship.