Following on from the blogs and other internet reports from the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference I have some more information on the work that is being undertaken by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites
Speaking to Virgin Galactic and Pratt & Whitney Canada this week I understand that PW&C engineers and Galactic personnel (some of which maybe Virgin Galactic engineers as it started employing its own technical people last year) are now located at Scaled Composites to help with the project. Pratt & Whitney Canada was awarded the engine contract for its PW308A model last year
White Knight II’s wing was fitted “weeks ago” according to Galactic’s president Will Whitehorn and P&WC’s PW308A engines have been tested prior to their fitting and have had various on-wing tests while they will be fired up next week – don’t know though if that was just one engine or multiple as WK2 uses four
The work done so far suggests they could have had internal power-on for WK2 some time ago
The P&WC engineers are helping with the installation of the engines and they will have a longer term involvement with Scaled beyond the ground and flight testing of WK2. For details on that longer term involvement you’ll have to wait for my story to appear on flightglobal.com
We now know that 28 July is the official roll out event for WK2 and I know that there could be a “live link” from the Scaled factory to Oshkosh, Wisconsin on the same day, with Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic team going to Oshkosh for the EAA AirVenture on the 29 July. At the Airventure there will be more Galactic promotion going on, I think
A press release has been sent out today by Scaled Composites saying that Burt Rutan is moving over to being chief technology officer and chairman emeritus. This release wasn’t on the Scaled website when I wrote this blog entry
