July 2021
Nitrous oxide – a green propellant for commercial space exploration
... propulsion functions mentioned earlier. Nitrous oxide / polyamide hybrid rocket motor that powered Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. A comparison of nitrous oxide propellant to the most common oxidiser alternatives and hydrazine is given in the table...
November 2021
Space launch emergency response
.... Members of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Go-Team inspect a tail section of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo experimental spaceflight test vehicle, which suffered a catastrophic in-flight breakup during a test flight and crashed...
02 December 2014
Rosetta comet success SpaceShipTwo
After an unplanned 30-minute bounce as it landed on the surface of Comet 67P, Philae, the little 100kg sub-probe to ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, finally settled down to transmit information and photos on 12 November 2014. It had landed 1 km off target ...
02 December 2014
SpaceShipTwo lost
Manufactured by Scaled Composites at its Mojave, California base, a SpaceShip -Two rocketplane crashed during a test flight on 31 October 2014 , with the tragic death of co-pilot Michael Alsbury. While pilot Peter Siebold escaped by parachute with ...
15 April 2019
Stratolaunch completes maiden flight successfully
... prize, the craft was immediately retired from active service. Stratolaunch follows a similar principle to Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first passenger carrying spaceship to be built by a private company, in that it takes off and lands...
