Posts Tagged ‘Mojave’

Article courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News

By Diane Alba, Staff and Wire reports

Video courtesy of Spaceport America

UPHAM – Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and prospective astronauts gathered in the southern New Mexico desert Friday to celebrate the completion of the runway at the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

Spaceport America is the world’s first facility designed specifically to launch commercial spacecraft. The celebration of its nearly-two-mile-long runway comes less than two weeks after another major step for Virgin Galactic: the first solo glide flight of its space tourism rocket ship.

Branson called it an emotional and historic day. The British billionaire said he expects flights for space tourists to begin in nine to 18 months, and he will be among the first passengers.

Stretching across a flat dusty plain 45 miles north of Las Cruces, the runway is designed to support almost every aircraft in the world, day-to-day space tourism and payload launch operations.

Virgin Galactic is the anchor tenant of the taxpayer-funded spaceport and plans to use the facility to take tourists on what will first be short hops into space. State officials want to add companies for other commercial space endeavors, such as research and payload delivery missions.

Virgin Galactic’s White Knight Two – the special jet-powered mothership that will carry SpaceShipTwo to launch altitude – also made an appearance Friday, passing over the spaceport several times before landing on the new runway.

Tickets for suborbital space rides aboard SpaceShipTwo cost $200,000. The 2½-hour flights will include about five minutes of weightlessness. Some 380 customers have already made deposits totaling more than $50 million, Virgin Galactic officials said Friday.

Branson, the president of Virgin Group, which counts airlines, entertainment and mobile communications among its businesses, partnered with famed aviation designer Burt Rutan on the venture.

Until now, space travel has been limited to astronauts and a handful of wealthy people who have shelled out millions to ride Russian rockets to the international space station.

Some of the soon-to-be astronauts attended Friday’s runway dedication.

While space tourism projects such as Virgin Galactic’s venture receive plenty of publicity, the commercial space industry is seeing rapid developments with companies like SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., seeking to win NASA work to supply the International Space Station.

SpaceX has successfully placed a dummy payload into orbit and has contracts to lift satellites next. Other firms, including Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif., and Armadillo Aerospace of Rockwell, Texas, are testing systems that would carry unmanned payloads to space.

Last month, Congress approved legislation that affirms President Barack Obama’s intent to use commercial carriers to lift humans into near-Earth space.

Sir Richard Branson Unveils SpaceShipTwo

Release Courtesy of Spaceport America and Virgin Galactic

LAS CRUCES – The world’s first manned commercial spaceship will be unveiled today in Mojave, California, and is projected to be flying from New Mexico’s Spaceport America, the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport, in 2011.

Today’s debut of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spaceship is to be attended by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson as well as New Mexico Spaceport Authority Executive Director Steve Landeene and other representatives of Spaceport America, the world headquarters of Virgin Galactic’s operations.

After a rigorous testing schedule, SS2 and its mothership, WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) will begin regular flying operations out of Spaceport America by some time in 2011. Spaceport America is currently under construction in New Mexico and is expected to be completed by early 2011.

For the complete press release from Virgin Galactic and accompanying photos, please visit the Virgin Galactic website.

A story featuring Spaceport America in Time Magazine is on newsstands today.  Entitled “Postcard from Las Cruces,” the story is written by former Life Magazine and People Magazine Editor Richard Stolley.

Spaceport America Architect's Rendering

The story provides some of the historical background of the development of Spaceport America, including the agreement between Sir Richard Branson and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to make Spaceport America headquarters for Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

This story’s timing is great for Spaceport America because it’s coming out just before the December 7th Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rollout in Mojave, Ca.

To read the entire story follow the “Postcard from Las Cruces” link above.