Virgin Galactic, a UK private space company founded by Richard Branson just announced plans to venture into the space race, rivaling space entrepreneurs like SpaceX's Elon Musk, to launch satellites and promote space tourism, after recovering from a fatal accident more than a year ago.
Branson reportedly said that it is now possible to open a fraction of the price for commercial space travel since there are a handful of space entrepreneurs who are now in the competition for bringing humans to space and beyond, since governments were able to carry out space exploration in the past.
Branson just revealed Virgin Galactic's new design for the LauncherOne rocket, boasting a 150,000 square foot space from the manufacturing facility in Long Beach, California.
This Friday Virgin Galactic is scheduled to reveal its new SpaceShipTwo which can hold six passengers comfortably, as this two-pilot, winged space plane can take anyone, not only astronauts to space, to experience lower Earth orbit some 62 miles above the surface of the planet. Ideally, this new space plane is designed for five minute 100 kilometer-altitude hops into suborbital space.
Virgin Galactic officials also announced that the space company is planning to develop and build their own launchers and rockets that include a new passenger spacecraft and new LauncherOne rockets that are designed to launch satellites into lower Earth orbit beginning early 2017.
However, Branson's venture into the space race was halted after its first spacecraft that was designed and developed by by Northrop Grumman Corporation Scaled Composites, was destroyed during a failed test flight last October 2014 over the Mojave desert, killing one pilot and ultimately, stopping commercial operations that was slated to launch early this year.
After a thorough investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, officials have determined that the co-pilot released the locks earlier than expected that are pinning down the rotating tail section in a secure position. Now, the new spaceship includes a pin that can prevent pilots to unlock the tail section prematurely, in order for aerodynamic forces to build up and obtain a boost, for the tail to stop rotating on its own.
This new second spacecraft us designed and manufactured by The Spaceship Company, which is a subsidiary of Virgin Galactic. The company already planned to build a fleet of five planes during the time of the accident.
Branson says that the company want to focus on production of point to point aircrafts and the best way to achieve that is to get involved in every step of experimentation and building process.
Branson is one of the founders of the Virgin Group along with Aabar Investments that are currently run by the government of Abu Dhabi. The company invested in more than US $500 million for Virgin Galactic according to company chief executive George Whitesides.
It now costs $250,000 for a seat on the SpaceShipTwo where almost 700 people have already signed for the first ride to suborbital space.