Preparations Underway for First Human Spaceflight from Spaceport America
SIERRA COUNTY, NM, December 7, 2020 (NMSA PR) — The New Mexico Spaceport Authority has started preparations ahead of Virgin Galactic’s first powered spaceflight from Spaceport America. The flight window will open on December 11, pending good weather conditions and technical readiness.
“We are thrilled about hosting the first human spaceflight from New Mexico,” said Spaceport America’s Interim Executive Director Scott McLaughlin, “this is an incredible moment for the entire state. Our team has been working closely with Virgin Galactic for many months to make sure everything is ready.”
The Gateway to Space facility at Spaceport America is home to Virgin Galactic’s terminal and hangar.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only mission-critical staff will be on site for the test flight. Spaceport America is certified in the state COVID-safe practice. All teams are following New Mexico guidelines by wearing masks, keeping social distance, and staying home when possible.
As a reminder, Spaceport America is an active test facility and remains closed to public access. Launches are not open to public viewing and are subject to scheduling changes. Spaceport America is asking the public to stay home and monitor social media channels for flight updates.
Spaceport America (https://www.spaceportamerica.com) is the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in the world. The FAA-licensed launch complex, situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, has a rocket friendly environment of 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace, low population density, a 12,000-foot by 200-foot runway, vertical launch complexes, and about 340 days of sunshine and low humidity. Some of the most respected companies in the commercial space industry are tenants at Spaceport America: Virgin Galactic, HAPSMobile/ AeroVironment, UP Aerospace, and SpinLaunch. Other customers include Boeing, EXOS Aerospace and C6 Launch Systems.
5 responses to “Preparations Underway for First Human Spaceflight from Spaceport America”
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It is amazing how irrelevant Virgin Galactic and Spaceship Two have become to the future of spaceflight after 16 years. I wish them well, but it’s about as exciting as reading about the testing of a new biplane or the green test of the SLS.
Its something to look forward to, along with New Shepard. Why I bet my Friend Jeff is gonna suprise everyone with a manned flight before the end of 2020!
Heh.
I’m sympathetic to your ennui.
But NASA is now interested in safety-checking SpaceShipTwo with an eye toward using it as a sort of “training wheels” spaceflight platform for rookie astronauts and a refresh ride for veteran astronauts between missions. Given the rather unimpressive job NASA did of vetting Starliner, I think the agency might actually be motivated to do a decent job curry-combing SpaceShipTwo. This couldn’t help but benefit individual customers of VG as well.
And this NASA thing could be a nice piece of business for VG. So could package deals involving SpaceShipTwo rides to familiarize would-be orbital space tourists with at least a taste of what they’d be letting themselves in for prior to their main sojourns to space.
As with every other aspect of suborbital spaceflight, of course, VG would have to compete with Blue Origin for any of this potential business. But, as both companies have been fairly profligate spenders anent vehicle development over the years, neither seems to have any obvious edge in terms of cost structure and amortization of development expenses.
So, for the time being, I retain at least a minimal level of interest in VG’s doings.
Right. In my view, VG and Blue have been demoted from exciting to watch, to just fun to watch. But that works for me on a slow space news day. And NASA involvement gives them an anchor customer to keep them going when the space tourists move on to more cutting edge destinations.