Thu Sep 28, 2006 4:26 pm
Pictures: First pictures of Virgin Galactic SpaceShip2 tourist spacecraft interior unveiled in New York
Flight International 09/28/2006
Author: Rob Coppinger
Sir Richard Branson unveiled a concept interior today for his Virgin Galactic company's suborbital spacecraft SpaceShipTwo (SS2) with a white livery and passenger seats that are reclined and shaped with a body contour.
The business jet sized SS2 will carry six passengers and have two pilots and will be dropped to fire its rocket motor by its White Knight 2 carrier aircraft at 60,000ft (18,200m), 10,000ft higher than SpaceShipOne's air launch altitude. The interior unveiled today (pictured below) is conceptual because it could change before commercial operations are expected to start in late 2008.
"It's very, very close to what is under construction at the moment," says Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn, referring to the SS2 prototype being built now at SS2 developer Scaled Composites in Mojave, California. He added that SS2 could be used for scientific missions.SS2 and its Boeing 757-wingspan carrier aircraft WK2 will be unveiled next year.
WK2 is expected to be unveiled in the third quarter and SS2 in the fourth quarter, when test flights are expected to begin.The space tourism provider also announced its first air miles customer today. Virgin Galactic offers a seat to Virgin Atlantic customers with two million frequent flyer points. Alan Watts, a UK citizen, is the first of 36 people who have that many air miles or close to it and is to fly in 2009. The next such customer would fly in 2010 as the company is limiting air miles customers flights to one a year.