Virgin Galactic is cleared to resume flights of its SpaceShipTwo, the carrier aircraft for its VSS Unity spacecraft, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Wednesday. The agency has just completed its inherent safety investigation into issues that arose during the company's flight in July.
Virgin Galactic operated its first official crewed mission on July 11. On board the VSS Unity suborbital plane, dropped at high altitude by its carrier plane SpaceShipTwo, the crew had enjoyed a few minutes of weightlessness before descending to Earth. The mission, initially presented as a real success, was nevertheless very quickly tainted.
Based on an New Yorker article published the following September 1, the pilots had indeed been alerted by warning lights during their ascent. These warnings indicated that the SpaceShipTwo had moved away from its airspace. In total, the aircraft would have deviated for 1 minute 41 seconds, i.e. for more than 10% of its flight time. And Virgin Galactic did not tell the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the body responsible for regulations and controls concerning civil aviation in the United States, when it was supposed to.
Over the past few weeks, the FAA has been investigating the incident. In the meantime, the plane was to remain grounded. This investigation is now closed, and the government agency is re-authorizing Virgin Galactic flights on the condition that it make several changes " to how it communicates with the FAA during flight operations to ensure public safety. » , the agency said in a statement.
These changes include "updated calculations to expand protected airspace for future flights" and " additional steps in company flight procedures to ensure real-time mission notifications to FAA air traffic control " .
The company's next flight, dubbed Unity 23 , is a search mission involving three members of the Italian Air Force. It will also carry scientific payloads. This will still be a test flight, but eventually missions like these (for research purposes) will be offered for $600,000.
As for individuals, the company recently announced the reopening of ticketing for flights over 80 km altitude. The starting price:450,000 dollars. For comparison, the price of these tickets was $200,000 in 2014. According to Virgin, more than a thousand potential customers have already made deposits of $1,000 to fly on their ship.
