Virgin Galactic

[Jason Chapman]

Anyone know what's going on with Richard Branson and his space program? I have a lot of high hopes for this. His Spaceship One was scheduled for launch last year, but it seems to have gone a bit quiet.

[PraedSt]

Yeah, they successfully tested their rocket a few days back. It was in the news. That's all I know.

[BetaDust]

SpaceshipOne made several flights allready.

From Wiki: Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne

01C May 20, 2003 1 h 48 min unmanned
02C July 29, 2003 2 h 06 min Mike Melvill
03G August 7, 2003 0 h 19 min Mike Melvill
04GC August 27, 2003 1 h 06 min Mike Melvill
05G August 27, 2003 10 min 30 s Mike Melvill
06G September 23, 2003 12 min 15 s Mike Melvill
07G October 17, 2003 17 min 49 s Mike Melvill
08G November 14, 2003 19 min 55 s Peter Siebold
09G November 19, 2003 12 min 25 s Mike Melvill
10G December 4, 2003 13 min 14 s Brian Binnie
11P December 17, 2003 Mach 1.2 20.7 km 18 min 10 s Brian Binnie
12G March 11, 2004 18 min 30 s Peter Siebold
13P April 8, 2004 Mach 1.6 32.0 km 16 min 27 s Peter Siebold
14P May 13, 2004 Mach 2.5 64.3 km 20 min 44 s Mike Melvill
15P June 21, 2004 Mach 2.9 100.1 km 24 min 05 s Mike Melvill
16P September 29, 2004 Mach 2.92 102.9 km 24 min 11 s Mike Melvill
17P October 4, 2004 Mach 3.09 112.0 km 23 min 56 s Brian Binnie

Currently Virgin Galactic is testing WhiteKnightTwo, and finishing SpaceShipTwo.

ETA: oh, and Welcome to BAUT, Jason Chapman.

--Dennis

[Damburger]

I assume the OP meant SpaceShipTwo.

Given that SpaceShipTwo is essentially a scaled up SpaceShipOne, and that its engine has checked out OK, I would imagine the whole craft should be tested soon.

Wouldn't hold your breath for SpaceShipThree though; nitrous oxide hybrid motors are really, really not suitable for putting things into orbit. SS2 is pretty much at the limit of what this technology can achieve.

[KaiYeves]

Now, why didn't I find the info on that motor test before? Now, I just have to find a color printer so I can add this to The Infamous Scrapbook.

[marsbug]

I assume the OP meant SpaceShipTwo.

Given that SpaceShipTwo is essentially a scaled up SpaceShipOne, and that its engine has checked out OK, I would imagine the whole craft should be tested soon.

Wouldn't hold your breath for SpaceShipThree though; nitrous oxide hybrid motors are really, really not suitable for putting things into orbit. SS2 is pretty much at the limit of what this technology can achieve.

There are some rumblings that virgin galactic will develop a small unmanned launch system.

[Damburger]

"Small" is the word - and it would require a second stage, probably with better performance. The reason none of the big space agencies have ever gone with hybrid engines is not because they retards who couldn't figure out space travel as well as the over-hyped private sector, but because they aren't that good compared to solid and liquid rockets.

[marsbug]

I've assumed that the virgin galactic launcher will be a solid fuel rocket like orbitals pegasus. In fact, aside from being launched from the white knight two aircraft, the idea seems very similar to pegasus. As you say, no one is going to make a hybrid engine launcher with worse performance than existing solid engine ones.

[cjameshuff]

"Small" is the word - and it would require a second stage, probably with better performance. The reason none of the big space agencies have ever gone with hybrid engines is not because they retards who couldn't figure out space travel as well as the over-hyped private sector, but because they aren't that good compared to solid and liquid rockets.

It's not accurate to say they're "not as good", though they certainly are a bit overhyped. There are tradeoffs...performance and safety versus control. The oxidizer doesn't mix as well as the fuel, so performance is worse than the already-poor solids. There may be ways to bring their performance closer to that of solids, but it's not trivial. However, even given their lower performance, they are more compact than liquids and more controllable than solids.

Their throttling capability and high thrust to weight could be useful for landing motors on missions to various moons, for example. Solids can't throttle and liquids are generally more complex and have their own issues...there are things like hydrazine freezing in the plumbing to worry about. If you need a small, high-thrust, one-shot engine with more control than solids can give you, and can take the performance hit, hybrids might be perfect.

They're also safer to make and handle. There's whole classes of issues that just don't exist for them. Dealing with large quantities of oxidizer, safely mixing it with fuel, casting it into solid fuel cores, and shipping and assembling those is not cheap. Again, if you can do without the better performance of liquids or pure solids, it may be worthwhile, especially if you're working with very large quantities. They may be well suited to strap-on boosters that are needed in large quantity per launch, and which themselves never come close to reaching orbit.

I've assumed that the virgin galactic launcher will be a solid fuel rocket like orbitals pegasus. In fact, aside from being launched from the white knight two aircraft, the idea seems very similar to pegasus. As you say, no one is going to make a hybrid engine launcher with worse performance than existing solid engine ones.

Orbital's Pegasus bears the distinction of being the most expensive way (in dollars per kg) to reach orbit. SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo are suborbital aircraft, and hybrids are everything they needs...the performance is not an issue, while safety and cost of handling are major issues.

SpaceShipThree is the planned orbital craft. A White Knight style carrier craft is a major assist for the suborbital craft, but a negligible one for orbital launches, and the vehicle would be far larger and more massive than a Pegasus rocket, meaning the carrier aircraft would have to be enormous. It seems very likely that the orbital craft will be a more traditional ground-launched vehicle (and I'm sure I've seen statements that this is the case, though I can't find them), and looking at other low-cost options, an all-solid rocket seems unlikely.

[marsbug]

I think we have our wires crossed. I'm referring to the plans for a micro sat launcher under discussion with surrey sattelite technology, reported by the BBC here. I don't expect to see concrete plans for a space ship three until spaceship two has been ferrying passengers for five years or so and shown to be a commercial success, if ever.

[mugaliens]

I think we have our wires crossed. I'm referring to the plans for a micro sat launcher under discussion with surrey sattelite technology, reported by the BBC here. I don't expect to see concrete plans for a space ship three until spaceship two has been ferrying passengers for five years or so and shown to be a commercial success, if ever.

SpaceShip 2 isn't a ferrying vehicle. It's larger version of 1 designed for only one thing - taking the paying passengers up for a joyride, and bringing them back down.

Altitude, not distance.

[marsbug]

My bad choice of words... ferrying up to the 100km mark and back so to speak.

[Larry Jacks]

Reviving this old thread with some current news:

Aviation Week: Abu Dhabi to buy stake in Virgin Galactic

An Abu Dhabi investment group will acquire a 32% stake in Virgin Galactic with plans to use the White Knight II motherships to launch small satellites as well as carry small tourism spaceships to the upper atmosphere.

The Aabar Investments group will pay $280 million for the stake, valuing Virgin Galactic at around $900 million, and plans to invest another $100 million to develop the small satellite launch capability, it was announced at Oshkosh by Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, its president Will Whitehorn and Aabar CEO Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny.

The deal will be subject to U.S. regulatory approval.
Aabar also plans to build spaceport facilities in Abu Dhabi, and will hold exclusive regional rights to host Virgin Galactic tourism and scientific research space flights.

I don't know if the small satellite capability will use the design mentioned in the earlier BBC article or some other approach. Sounds interesting, though.

[JonClarke]

SpaceShip 2 isn't a ferrying vehicle. It's larger version of 1 designed for only one thing - taking the paying passengers up for a joyride, and bringing them back down.

Not just joy rides. Paying passengers can include researchers. Spaceship 2 provides access to regions accessible only to sounding rockets but with a much larger payload. It also offers much longer periods of microgravity than a parabolic flight.

Microgravity researchers, atmospheric scientists, space physicsts are all potential customers. NASA and other space agencies would certainly be justified in chartering flights, or even buying an example themselves.

Jon

[Glom]

I need to know how efficiently injected gas will sweep oil through a rock matrix. If I added I'd like to know how microgravity would affect EOR performance, do you think I could get a grant?

[H4wkeye]

If i remember correctly,Virgin Galactic opened the worlds first space port,in New Mexico. http://www.spaceportamerica.com/

[JonClarke]

I need to know how efficiently injected gas will sweep oil through a rock matrix. If I added I'd like to know how microgravity would affect EOR performance, do you think I could get a grant?

I don't see why not. You could address a whole range of issues ranging from basic fluid physics to applications for gas flow on low gravity worlds.

Get to it!

Jon

[Tuckerfan]

Not just joy rides. Paying passengers can include researchers. Spaceship 2 provides access to regions accessible only to sounding rockets but with a much larger payload. It also offers much longer periods of microgravity than a parabolic flight.

Microgravity researchers, atmospheric scientists, space physicsts are all potential customers. NASA and other space agencies would certainly be justified in chartering flights, or even buying an example themselves.

Jon

IIRC, one of the conditions for entering the Ansari X-Prize was that you had to agree to reserve space for researchers on any commercial flights. The researchers would have to pay for the flight, of course, but one couldn't lock them out and say that they were only going to be taking tourists. I know that in one of their press releases either Scaled or VG stated that they'd had a number (like in the thousands) of requests from researchers for a slot on one of the flights.

[tashirosgt]

On the one hand, I live in a county that voted to impose a tax to support the "Space Port" where Virgin Galactic says it will launch it's flights. On the other hand, a friend of mine claimed that the only technical enterprise that Branson has ever run is a chain of amusement parks.

I suppose I can withhold judgement on this and see what happens. It probably has a better chance that the solar generator unit of "Sir" Charles Shults which is (or is not) being constructed in Truth Or Consequences. I could also drive to Roswell in a few hours and I'm content to let that remain up in the air.

[Tuckerfan]

On the one hand, I live in a county that voted to impose a tax to support the "Space Port" where Virgin Galactic says it will launch it's flights. On the other hand, a friend of mine claimed that the only technical enterprise that Branson has ever run is a chain of amusement parks.

So the airlines, cellphone companies, trains, and more don't count as "technical enterprises"? Interesting.

[Larry Jacks]

There's a good article on Virgin Galactic at Aviation Week & Space Technology's website titled Quest For Space At Virgin Galactic. It has good info on the status of SpaceShipTwo development and the capabilities of WhiteKnightTwo. WK2 has a maximum payload capability of 35,000 pounds. That's 6,000 pounds less than a Pegasus booster*. Since Abu Dhabi has invested heavily in Virgin Galactic and they're interested in space launch, we can begin getting some insight on the size and potential capability of the planned orbital booster they're working on. The actual payload will depend on many factors such as the type of propellant they're going to use. Pegagus is all solid fuel. If they go with a liquid or perhaps a hybrid engine that has a higher Isp than solid propellant, they might be able to achieve about the same payload as a Pegasus (~400 KG to LEO) with a lighter vehicle. The article states they believe they can achieve LEO capability for $3 million per launch, so my guess is they're looking at solid or hybrid rockets, perhaps the same one being built for SS2.

*Burt and Scaled Composites are quite familiar with the Pegasus booster. Scaled did the wings and tail fins for the first stage of the Pegasus and other things.