credit Flight / caption: SpaceShipTwo underwraps here at Scaled Composites hangar
Contrary to rumours that Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShip Two will be appearing at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture event, held in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, every year, Hyperbola can confirm that that is not the case
Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn has told Hyperbola that
No [SS2 will not be at Oshkosh] this will be a long proving flight for WhiteKnight Two as part of its experimental programme and it will do some interesting demo flights whilst there to show off its capabilities. SpaceShip Two will be unveiled and begin its flying programme later on this year.
Hyperbola obtained video of SS2 underwraps at Scaled’s hangar on 28 July last year while attending the roll out of WhiteKnight Two, see it below. You can read about WK2’s visit to AirVenture in this flightglobal.com
I read it as meaning anytime later this year before or after July. I have heard two possible dates Q2 or Q3. I think at this stage it is anyone’s guess. They keep saying carrying flight tests late this year so the latest date for the SS2 roll out I would imagine would be December. They may well roll out SS2 and start carrying tests the next day. Its the easiest way to avoid disrupting SS2 construction completion.
You could be right about that. SS2 development was basically halted after the explosion that killed three Scaled employees so that explains the slow construction process. I am guessing that they could do the paint job etc and roll it out (I prefer the term roll out as the “unveiling” was done when they revealed the design in January 2008) sometime fairly soon but IMHO it is better project management and public relations to simply get SS2 flight ready and then bolt it onto VMS Eve straight away. Or they face another situation of rolling out an empty airframe one month and then constantly face questions about when it will fly when they are months late – as they found with WK2. Never forget the 20% rule on project manageemnt. However long you think something will take, assume the worst and then add 20% to that.
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off topic but interesting…
in the latest update to my “Ares-1 can’t fly” article ( http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/012arescantfly.html ) I talk about the Ares-1 stage-separation ullage motors you report in this Hyperbola post:
http://www.seradata.com/hyperbola/2009/02/nasa-blogs-ares-i-staging-risk.html
well, since these 20+ motors add very much risks to the Ares-1 flight, the REAL safety and reliability of this new rocket CAN’T BE “two times than an EELV” (as claimed by NASA) but (probably) 5+ TIMES LESS than an EELV
so, the Ares-1 CAN’T FLY (or can’t fly SAFELY) and the FULL ESAS PLAN is seriously DOOMED
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