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George Whitesides

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2 Nov, 2015

Announces SS2 testing

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Virgin 2Branson says the second SpaceShipTwo will be ready to start testing by February 2016. SpaceShipTwo is designed to bring six passengers up to suborbital space before bringing them back down to Earth. All the building and testing of the suborbital craft is all being done in-house at Virgin Galactic, a handover that was in the works before the 2014 accident. CEO Whitesides:

I think we are in a much better place than we might have expected in the period immediately after (last year’s) accident, and that’s because our team came together, our customers stuck with us, and honestly, we believe that the vehicle itself is sound.

While Branson is not giving a firm date for the inaugural flight of SpaceShipTwo — with himself and his family among the passengers — he believes the company is on the right track.

We’ll be unveiling the new spaceship and then we go into flight tests. That’s one thing I’m never going to be in a hurry on. We just have to see how it goes.

12 Sep, 2014

Launch delayed again

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Branson hopes that Virgin Galactic will be ready for launch by early next year. Despite of the fact that the deadline has been delayed for close to seven years, the company’s developers are giving safety priority over deadlines. CEO George Whitesides:

Customers are eager to fly, but they know we’ll fly them when we feel ready. Obviously we want to do it as quickly as possible, but we don’t want to rush it.

Branson says on NBC’s “Today” show:

We’re now going through the final testing stages. We’ll be doing at least one flight into space before the end of the year. I’ll be going up with my son Sam ‘early-ish’ in the new year.