Virgin Galactic cleared for rocket-powered test flights

Virgin Galactic has revealed that it expects to make rocket-powered test flights of its passenger spaceship later this year, bringing space tourism one step closer.
The company - the brainchild of pioneering Sir Richard Branson - said its spaceship builder partner, Scaled Composites, has been granted an experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
That means it will be allowed to proceed with rocket-powered test flights.

A post on the company's website said: 'Scaled expects to begin rocket-powered, supersonic flights under the just-issued experimental permit toward the end of the year.'
No timetable has been set for the first launches carrying paying customers, but that is expected to be confirmed after the test program is complete.
More than 500 people, including actor Ashton Kutcher, have signed up with Virgin Galactic for a chance to experience weightlessness during suborbital flights.
Sir Richard and his children Sam and Holly are also set to be among the first commercial passengers on SpaceShipTwo.

SpaceShipTwo manufacturer Scaled Composites of Mojave, California, received the one-year experimental launch permit on May 23 for test flights beyond the atmosphere, FAA spokesman Hank Price said.
The six-passenger, two-pilot spacecraft is based on the prototype SpaceShipOne, also built by Scaled, which clinched the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 for the first privately funded human space flights.
SpaceShipOne made three suborbital hops beyond the atmosphere, each with a solo pilot aboard, ultimately reaching an altitude of nearly 70 miles above Earth. SpaceShipOne is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Richard Branson, whose company Virgin Group jointly owns Virgin Galactic with Aabar Investments PJS, hired SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan to create a fleet of spaceships for commercial use.
Participants will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curve of Earth set against the black sky of space.
Like SpaceShipOne, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo will be flown into the air beneath a carrier jet and released. Once separated, the spaceship's rocket engine will fire to blast it into the sky. SpaceShipTwo has completed 16 free flight tests.
The FAA permit will enable Scaled, now wholly owned by Northrop Grumman, to move on to rocket-powered flights.