Virgin Galactic sent its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, VSS Unity, to its highest-ever altitude today during its third powered test flight — setting the stage for a full-powered push across the boundary… Read More
Virgin Galactic and a pair of Italian companies today signed a framework agreement aimed at bringing Virgin Galactic’s launch system to a future spaceport in the heel of Italy’s “boot.”… Read More
Virgin Galactic sent its VSS Unity space plane skyward for a second supersonic rocket-powered test flight today, bringing the company one step closer toward reaching the space frontier. “It was… Read More
Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane flew a smooth, supersonic test flight today during its first rocket-powered outing since the first SpaceShipTwo broke up three and a half years ago.… Read More
Space is hard: That used to be the excuse for explaining why sending people into space would always be something only governments could do. Now it explains why even billionaires… Read More
Virgin Galactic hasn’t yet started taking tourists into space on its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, but the company now offers a virtual SpaceShipTwo tour on its website, with a big assist… Read More
News Brief: Virgin Galactic and the Italian Space Agency say they’ve signed a letter of intent to send an Italian payload specialist and scientific experiments on a suborbital space mission… Read More
Vice President Mike Pence made Mojave, Calif., the latest stop on his nationwide tour of spaceship development sites today, with visits to Virgin Galactic and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Stratolaunch… Read More
Virgin Galactic said its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane today executed a successful gliding flight test that was “essentially a dry run for rocket-powered flights.” “Our major first today though was that… Read More
Virgin Galactic’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson, has been toning down his predictions about the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane’s future trips to space. Until now. During a trip to Hong Kong to… Read More
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane took another step toward lighting up its engine in flight today, by simulating the shift in its weight with water instead of rocket fuel. Today’s… Read More
Virgin Galactic passed another essential milestone today in the flight test program for VSS Unity, its upgraded SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, by bending its wings into a “feathered” position for the… Read More
When senators asked executives from Blue Origin and other commercial space ventures what they could do to help them at a Senate hearing today, they received an unusual reply: Give… Read More
Virgin Galactic says it’s spinning off its satellite launch operation, including the LauncherOne rocket development program, as a new commercial space company called Virgin Orbit. The newly created company’s first… Read More
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane glided through its third free-flying test run today, and although it hasn’t yet lit up its engine, there was a high-powered crowd to fuel the… Read More
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo craft, VSS Unity, took its second free-flying test run today, closing off a rebuilding year for the space venture. At the start of the year, the company… Read More
Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, dubbed VSS Unity, successfully glided through its first free-flying test run today. The flight comes more than two years after the first SpaceShipTwo broke… Read More
Virgin Galactic had to scale back what it hoped would be its first free-flying test of VSS Unity, its second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, due to unacceptably high crosswinds. Instead of… Read More
Virgin Galactic sent its second SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, VSS Unity, into the air for the first time today – tucked securely beneath its WhiteKnightTwo mothership for the entire three-hour-plus flight. The… Read More
Virgin Galactic says it’s received an operator license from the Federal Aviation Administration for flying its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane into outer space with commercial payloads. The craft, known as VSS Unity,… Read More
Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, plans to accelerate its current once-every-eight-weeks schedule for flight tests of its New Shepard suborbital spaceship, leading up to… Read More
Remember the Concorde? Boom Technology has picked up a high-profile set of allies in its quest to revive supersonic passenger jets: British billionaire Richard Branson, his Virgin Galactic space venture… Read More
In the past few weeks, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space venture and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture have both had a lot to talk about. Today, both companies delved more… Read More
MOJAVE, Calif. – Sixteen months after Virgin Galactic’s first SpaceShipTwo rocket plane was lost amid tragedy, the second SpaceShipTwo was christened Virgin Spaceship Unity today with a smashed bottle of milk… Read More
More than a year after the first SpaceShipTwo rocket plane was destroyed in a fatal test flight, Virgin Galactic says the second SpaceShipTwo is ready for its California rollout on… Read More
When Jeff Bezos welcomed SpaceX to the rocket landing “club” last week, it set off a round of twittering over whether Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture and fellow billionaire Elon… Read More
Virgin Galactic showed off its latest mothership today: a Boeing 747-400 jet that it acquired from its corporate cousins at Virgin Atlantic to serve as the platform for its LauncherOne… Read More
The recommendations coming out of a federal investigation of last October’s fatal SpaceShipTwo breakup are likely to add to the challenges facing the commercial spaceflight industry – but they could also provide… Read More
Pilot error, an in-flight braking system that wasn’t sufficiently fail-safe, and lapses in training and the regulatory process contributed to the fatal breakup of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane during a… Read More
Richard Branson updated the Virgin Galactic blog today with news of what’s going on with the company’s second SpaceShipTwo. Virgin suffered a tragic setback last fall, when its first SpaceShipTwo… Read More