by David Todd | Jul 15, 2019 | Apollo, Blue Origin, Commercial human spaceflight, NASA, Seradata News, Space Insurance, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic
As the 50th celebration of the Apollo 11 astronaut moon landing gets underway, some less well-known aspects of the mission have been revealed. One was that during the late 1950s the UK briefly considered starting a project to mount its own Apollo-11-style human lunar...
by David Todd | Feb 26, 2019 | Commercial human spaceflight, Personal spaceflight, Suborbital, Virgin Galactic
At 1607 GMT on 15 February a Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Unity rocketplaine was air-dropped from its carrier aircraft Over the Mojave air strip in California, at. Aboard was David Mackay – the main test pilot and his co-pilot Mike “Sooch” Masucci (Co-Pilot). ...
by David Todd | Dec 14, 2018 | Commercial human spaceflight, Personal spaceflight, Seradata News, Virgin Galactic, White Knight
The US Air Force has traditionally awarded its pilots “astronaut wings” if they have exceeded 50 miles (80km) in altitude. Others who support this limit of where “space begins” include astrophysicist and spaceflight expert Dr Jonathan McDowell. He has eloquently...
by David Todd | Aug 7, 2018 | Commercial human spaceflight, Seradata News, Suborbital, Virgin Galactic
The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, VSS Unity, has made its third test flight, and the seventh in total for the SpaceShipTwo rocketplane design. The first four were flown by VSS Enterprise but it was destroyed in an accident involving premature feathering...
by David Todd | May 30, 2018 | Commercial human spaceflight, Seradata News, Suborbital, Technology, Virgin Galactic
On 29 May, Virgin Galactic made the second flight of its SpaceShipTwo VSS-Unity rocket plane which ignited its rocket after being dropped by its carrier aircraft VMS Eve. The rocket plane’s rocket engine burned for 31 seconds, with the craft achieving Mach...
by David Todd | Apr 6, 2018 | Commercial human spaceflight, Space tourism, Virgin Galactic
The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, VSS Unity, has restarted test flights two years after the fatal test flight that killed co-pilot Mike Alsbury. A combination of pilot error and poor design were blamed for the premature feathering of the wing. The craft,...
