Virgin's Spaceship Enterprise Makes First Crewed Flight

By Nancy Atkinson - July 19, 2010 at 6:29 AM UTC | Space Exploration
vss-enterprise.jpg

For the first time, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, named the

Enterprise

, flew with crew on board. While it stayed attached to the "Eve" mothership for the duration of the July 15 flight, Scaled Composites – the builders of the spacecraft – called the flight a "significant milestone as the team marches towards the first solo flights." Numerous combined vehicle systems tests were conducted, as two crew members on board VSS Enterprise evaluated all of the spaceship's systems and functions from end to end in the air, and all objectives were achieved.

[/caption] This was the third time the Enterprise had flown in its "captive carry" configuration, but the first time with crew on board. It was the 33rd flight for WhiteKnightTwo, also known as Eve. The flight time was 6 hours 12 minutes.

The crew on the Enterprise was Peter Siebold, Michael Alsbury, and on board Eve were Mark Stucky, Peter Kalogiannis, and Brian Maisler.

SpaceShipTwo can fly up to eight people (six passengers and two pilots) on suborbital flights that would provide a weightless experience for 4-6 minutes. Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, has stated that the company would "not put a definite timeline on when the commercial flights would begin" but if all goes according to plan they hope to make their first passenger flights in 2011. Tickets are on sale for $200,000 per person.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com