Unity: What Is Next For Virgin Galactic's New Spaceplane After First Glide Flight?

Virgin Galactic's new spaceplane, Unity, makes its first free flight with a glide test in the Mojave Desert on Saturday. It was released at a height of 50,000 feet and glided for 10 minutes in Mojave Air and Space Port.

The new spaceplane, VSS Unity, was piloted by Dave Mackay and Mark Stucky. It was attached to the wing of the mothership, which is a specially designed jet name WhiteKnightTwo and piloted by Mike Masucci and Todd Ericsson together with flight test engineer Dustin Mosher. They had a 1-hour 20-minute flight and the pilots, mission controllers and ground crew gathered valuable data.

The company said that this test flight was the fifth flight of VSS Unity and the 218th flight of WhiteKnightTwo. It further stated that this glide was the first of many.

Virgin Galactic stated that have not yet reached the rocket-powered phase of the test flight program. They still need to collect test flight data to confirm their analyses and calculations about how the VSS Unity will perform in real-world flight conditions.

The company disclosed the new spaceship at the Mojave site early this year, in February, iafrica.com reported. It looks hugely the same as its predecessor.

Moreover, Virgin Galactic stressed that commercial space flights would not take place until it is satisfied that the spaceplane can carry the flights out safely.

This new spaceplane is designed to carry passengers to space and back. It is owned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Aabar Investments of Abu Dhabi. It is 60 feet long and has a wingspan of 42 feet. The spaceplane could carry six passengers in addition to the two-person crew.

This concept of the new spaceplane is dubbed as SpaceshipTwo, following the SpaceShipOne, which rocketed to space three times in 2004. It also won the $10 million Ansari X Prize, according to ABC News.