Spaceship from Virgin Galactic gets FAA operator license
NewsAugust 02, 2016
MOJAVE, California. Officials at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration?s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA-AST) granted Virgin Galactic an operating license for SpaceShipTwo, also known as VSS Unity. This license award will ultimately permit commercial operations of the vehicle.
The license action was the culmination of several years of in-depth interaction between the FAA and Virgin Galactic, according to a Virgin Galactic release. The license review process includes an in-depth review of the vehicle’s system design, safety analysis, and flight trajectory analysis, eventually resulting in FAA-AST approval.
The Unity spacecraft made its first taxi test this month to evaluate and calibrate the navigation and communications/telemetry systems. It was pulled by a Range Rover Autobiography provided by Virgin Galactic’s automotive partner Land Rover, the same vehicle that will be used to tow Unity off the runway after flight tests.
For more information, visit www.virgingalactic.com.
