Astronautics-2018. Part two
July
At the end of June, the Japanese AMS Hayabusa 2 (Hayabusa 2) went into orbit asteroid Ryugu (162173 Ryugu). Images from a distance of 20 km were published only 11 July. In addition, the spacecraft sent a three-dimensional model of the asteroid's surface.
SpaceX Dragon 2
The first spacecraft Dragon 2 from SpaceX left the NASA Research Center. Glenn in Plume-Brooke after passing the thermal vacuum and acoustic tests. According to SpaceX, these tests were final before the ship was sent to the space center for final checks and integration with the launch vehicle.
India
In July, the Indian Space Agency successfully tested the emergency rescue system for a promising national spacecraft. Tests lasted 220 seconds.
Федерация
26 in July JSC Technodinamika (Rostec) conducted the first test dump of a mass mockup with a parachute system being developed for the new manned ship Federation. The dumping took place at the Kirzhach airfield in the Vladimir region and was timed to coincide with the opening of a new production line of the Research Institute of Parachute Engineering.
SpaceShipTwo
Unity, the second ship of the SpaceShipTwo project, made the ascent to the record-breaking 50 km.
August
Parker Solar Probe
12 August successful launch of the solar probe to them. Parker. The device was developed from 2008, the Laboratory of Applied Physics, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. The probe will approach the star at a distance to 8,5 of the solar radius (≈1⁄9 of the radius of the orbit of Mercury), or 5,9 of a million kilometers. The scientific station will approach the Sun at a record short distance. The life of the device - 7 years. During active work, he will have to perform an 24 orbit around the Sun.
SpaceX
60, the jubilee launch was an important milestone in stories the company. The 5,8-ton telecommunications satellite Merah Putih (Telkom-4) of the Indonesian company Telkom was launched into orbit. This spacecraft was built by the American company SSL. For launching into orbit, the Falcon 9 rocket was used in the final modification of Block 5. Improvements in this version have touched engines, structural elements and were aimed at reducing the time for inter-flight service.
And again Hayabusa 2
The AMS “Hayabusa-2” got close to the asteroid “Ryugu” up to 1 km. A systematic preparation for a scientific research program has begun.
2014 MU69
The New Horizons interplanetary station, which flew near the dwarf planet Pluto three years ago, photographed its next target - an object in the Kuiper belt Ultima Thule (2014 MU69). The picture was taken 16 August from a distance of 172 million kilometers. The span of the New Horizons station around 2014 MU69 is to be held on January 1 2019.
Hole in the porthole
The month ended difficult for astronautics in general and for difficult relations between the Russian Federation and the United States in particular. 30 August on the ISS found a drop in pressure due to leaks in the domestic compartment "Union MC-09". Despite the successful repair and elimination of the consequences of an emergency situation that occurred at an altitude of 400 km overgrown with a huge amount of rumors and speculation thanks to the media and some officials. Even before the conclusions of the commissions and examinations, the insane were declared guilty by the crazy astronauts of NASA, who were urged to go home because of the non-working toilet.
September
Spectrum-WG
The Space Observatory "Spectr-RG" successfully passed thermal vacuum tests. In April, the Russian Space Systems company 2018 completed the manufacture of an onboard radio complex for the telescope. It was the last device that braked the assembly and the beginning of a series of tests before launching space. Earlier, in 2014, the launch of the Spectra-RG did not take place due to problems with surveillance devices: the Russian gamma-ray telescope APT-XC and the German eROSITA x-ray telescope. The developers of ART-XC had to switch to the use of an American mirror, and the engineers from the Institute. Max Planck to review the design of eROSITA.
In March-April, the 2019 spacecraft will be launched using the Proton-M launch vehicle and the DM-03 upper stage. Approximately in 100 days it will have to reach a working position near the libration point L2 of the Earth-Sun system at a distance 1 million km from us. If successful, the Spektr-RG will be the first Russian device to leave Earth orbit. The mass of the device is 2,73 t, the service life is at least 7,5 years.
Delta II
In 2018, not only new boosters have appeared, but some have also retired. 15 September was the last launch of the Delta II. The rocket launched the Earth remote sensing satellite ICESat-2 into Earth orbit to observe the ice cover of our planet.
This media has been used since 1989. Total launches are 155, of which 1 is unsuccessful and 1 is partially unsuccessful. A distinctive feature of the Delta II is the use of toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as fuel in the second stage.
Opportunity
On September 11, attempts began to reestablish communications with the rover caught in the dust storm. They continued throughout September and October, but this did not bring any result.
The above image of the HiRISE camera of the scientific satellite MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) was taken on September 20 from a height of 268 km. The dark point in the center of the white square is the Opportunity rover, standing on the side of the Valley of Perseverance.
MINERVA II
A Japanese research station conducted an operation to reset two MINERVA II probes to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu. The spacecraft began to approach the asteroid, and when the distance between them decreased to 60 m, the spacecraft dropped two cylindrical microprobe MINERVA II.
MINERVA II is an upgraded version of the MINERVA probes used on the first Hayabus. Unfortunately, those probes flew past the Itokawa asteroid.
On board the spacecraft "Hayabusa-2" there are three such probes, two of them are placed in one container. Due to the weak gravity of Ryugu (it is approximately 80 thousand times lower than on Earth), the probes will fall on its surface at a speed of about 0,3 m per second. The mass of one MINERVA II probe is 1,1 kg, the weight in the Ryugu gravitational field is about 0,018 g. The probe has a cylindrical shape. Its diameter is 18 cm, height - 7 cm.
October
MASCOT
October 3 research station "Hayabusa-2" (Hayabusa 2) approached the asteroid Ryugu at a distance of 100 m and dropped the landing probe MASCOT.
MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, mobile asteroid surface surveyor) is a small probe developed by the specialists of the German Space Center (DLR) in close cooperation with the French Space Agency (CNES). It is equipped with a rechargeable battery that will ensure its autonomous operation for 16 hours. MASCOT is the largest of all the landing gear on the Hayabus-2. It was developed by a team that was in charge of the Phila's landing gear for the European Rosetta comet mission, but MASCOT is noticeably smaller and simpler than its predecessor. It has a mass of 10 kg and is comparable in size to a shoe box.
OSIRIS-REx
October 15 US interplanetary research station OSIRIS-REx conducted another correction trajectory. In just a month and a half, 2 December 2018, she will have to reach the asteroid Bennu. The main purpose of the device is to take a sample of the soil from the surface of the asteroid and deliver it to Earth. At that time, the distance from OSIRIS-REx to the asteroid was about 6 thousand kilometers.
New Chinese spaceship
Details about the plans of the CNSA for manned space flight appeared. The new ship will replace the "Shenzhou" ships and, according to the concept, resembles the "Orion" from NASA and the "Federation" from Roscosmos.
Read more here: New Chinese spaceship.
"Union MC-10"
The Soyuz-FG launch vehicle crash forced the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft to make a forced ballistic landing, and another expedition did not make it to the ISS. SAS worked properly and saved the crew. What happened raised a wave of questions and criticism in the direction of Roscosmos. The crisis in the Russian cosmonautics has never been so obvious, especially after the commission’s conclusions about an error when assembling a rocket.
BepiColombo
BepiColombo is the first mission of the European Space Agency for the Study of Mercury. It was developed jointly with JAXA (the Japanese space agency) and consists of two scientific satellites: MPO (Mercury Planetary Orbiter, developed by ESA) and MMO (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, developed in Japan). The devices will get to Mercury together, attached to the MTM platform (Mercury Transfer Module, ESA), after which they will separate and begin separately to carry out their scientific programs.
BepiColombo successfully launched on October 20 in 4: 45 Moscow time on Ariane 5 launch vehicle from a launch site in French Guiana. The flight to Mercury will take 7,2 years. In April, 2020, the unit will perform a gravitational maneuver near the Earth, in October, 2020 and August, 2021 - two spans at Venus and six maneuvers at Mercury from October 2021 to January 2025. Planetary orbit is expected at the end of 2025.
Dawn
The Dawn ("Breaking Dawn") spacecraft was launched in the 2007 year. The purpose of the mission was to study the ancient objects of the main asteroid belt. A distinctive feature of the device was the use of electrojet (ion) sustainer propulsion system. Thanks to her, Dawn was able to explore two objects at once: the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. In the 2011 year, he reached the asteroid, worked for more than a year in his orbit, and then headed for Ceres. Since April 2015, Dawn has been in orbit around a dwarf planet.
After Dawn’s main mission was completed, it was redirected to low orbits. In August, he descended to a height of several tens of kilometers above the surface of Ceres. Next sessions with Dawn were scheduled for October 31 and November 1, but they did not take place. After examining all the possible reasons, experts concluded that the lack of communication was caused by the lack of fuel on board the device. Thus, the mission of Dawn can be considered complete.
In total, over the course of its 11 years in space, this device has flown 6,9 billion kilometers. It will remain in orbit in the next few decades (at least 50 years with a probability of 99%), after which it will fall to the surface of Ceres.
Until Space X
At the end of the month, an ultra-light Zhucu-1 solid-fuel rocket (Zhuque 1, 300 kg per 300-kilometer orbit) from a private Chinese company, LandSpace, flew. During a test launch at the end of October, the rocket failed to go into orbit. The official reason is fuel leakage caused by problems with the third-stage orientation control system.
November
OSIRIS-REx
As they approached the object of study, the American AMC photographed the asteroid Benna from all sides, creating an animation of the rotation of a celestial body.
Watch here: Osiris Rex Mission.
Mission 2020
So far, an unnamed mars rover, planned to pair with Curiosity and replace the lost Opportunity, has received the exact landing site. NASA chose Jezero's crater on the western slope of the Isis plain as a research area.
Orion
The final assembly of the Orion spacecraft began for the EM-1 unmanned mission to fly around the moon. After the arrival of the service module developed by Airbus Defense and Space from Bremen (Germany), the preparation for the mission assigned to 2020 will take 400 days. It will include not only the connection of all units and modules, but also leak tests and testing of all systems of a prospective ship.
Insight. Landing
November 26 AMC Insight successfully landed on the Highlands of Elysius on Mars.
KSLV-II
South Korea continues to work on the creation of the launch vehicle. After the successful launch of Naro-1 in 2013, the Korean Space Agency decided to abandon the development of cooperation with the Russian Federation. In Naro-1 used the first step, developed at the Center to them. Khrunichev based on the universal rocket module (URM-1) "Angara". In KSLV-II, the first stage of its own design will be used.
On November 27, a suborbital flight of the first stage demonstrator KSLV-II took place. On this single-stage rocket, one oxygen-kerosene engine was installed with an 75 tonne. The engine ran 151 with, thereby confirming its characteristics. At the time of its shutdown, the flight altitude was 75 km. The maximum lift height of the rocket (209 km) was reached at 319 second.
December
OSIRIS-Rex. Arrival.
December 3 AMC OSIRIS-Rex reaches the 101955 asteroid Bennu. The list of initial studies includes the creation of a detailed map of the celestial body. Sampling is scheduled for July 2020 of the year, departure for 3 of March of 2021 of the year. The return will take 2,5 of the year, and according to plans the landing will be carried out on 24 September of 2023.
Chang'e-xnumx.
Chang'e-4 was successfully launched from Earth 7 December 2018 of the year on the Long March 3B PH from the Sichan space center. The moon landing is scheduled for the start of the 2019 year. 12 December 2018, the apparatus went into elliptical orbit around the moon.
SpaceShipTwo
In the evening of December 13, a SpaceShipTwo suborbital plane, called the VSS Unity, made its fourth flight. He set the altitude record, climbing 82,7 km. The maximum speed was Mach 2,9. Engine Duration - 60 seconds.
Upon completion of flight tests, VSS Unity will be forwarded to a private aerodrome of Spaceport America in the state of New Mexico. From there, SpaceShipTwo will fly into space with tourists, and it will probably start no earlier than the end of 2019. In the first flight on board will be the founder of the company - Richard Branson. Virgin Galactic has about 700 potential customers who have paid for the full cost of the ticket or paid the advance. Four years ago, the sale of tickets was suspended, but soon it will resume. At the same time, the price of a ticket to space will rise again. Initially, SpaceShipTwo could get for 200 thousand dollars, but then the price increased to 250 thousand. What it will be after the resumption of sales is unknown.
In addition to VSS Unity, a second similar aircraft is under construction, which should be ready in about a year. The construction of two more vehicles, as well as the second WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft will begin in the near future.
The total investment in Virgin Galactic is estimated at $ 1,3-1,5 billion. This amount includes the cost of building an ultra-light LauncherOne air-launched missile.
At the end of June, the Japanese AMS Hayabusa 2 (Hayabusa 2) went into orbit asteroid Ryugu (162173 Ryugu). Images from a distance of 20 km were published only 11 July. In addition, the spacecraft sent a three-dimensional model of the asteroid's surface.
Hayabus 2. Arrival
SpaceX Dragon 2
The first spacecraft Dragon 2 from SpaceX left the NASA Research Center. Glenn in Plume-Brooke after passing the thermal vacuum and acoustic tests. According to SpaceX, these tests were final before the ship was sent to the space center for final checks and integration with the launch vehicle.
India
In July, the Indian Space Agency successfully tested the emergency rescue system for a promising national spacecraft. Tests lasted 220 seconds.
Федерация
26 in July JSC Technodinamika (Rostec) conducted the first test dump of a mass mockup with a parachute system being developed for the new manned ship Federation. The dumping took place at the Kirzhach airfield in the Vladimir region and was timed to coincide with the opening of a new production line of the Research Institute of Parachute Engineering.
SpaceShipTwo
Unity, the second ship of the SpaceShipTwo project, made the ascent to the record-breaking 50 km.
August
Parker Solar Probe
12 August successful launch of the solar probe to them. Parker. The device was developed from 2008, the Laboratory of Applied Physics, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. The probe will approach the star at a distance to 8,5 of the solar radius (≈1⁄9 of the radius of the orbit of Mercury), or 5,9 of a million kilometers. The scientific station will approach the Sun at a record short distance. The life of the device - 7 years. During active work, he will have to perform an 24 orbit around the Sun.
SpaceX
60, the jubilee launch was an important milestone in stories the company. The 5,8-ton telecommunications satellite Merah Putih (Telkom-4) of the Indonesian company Telkom was launched into orbit. This spacecraft was built by the American company SSL. For launching into orbit, the Falcon 9 rocket was used in the final modification of Block 5. Improvements in this version have touched engines, structural elements and were aimed at reducing the time for inter-flight service.
And again Hayabusa 2
The AMS “Hayabusa-2” got close to the asteroid “Ryugu” up to 1 km. A systematic preparation for a scientific research program has begun.
2014 MU69
The New Horizons interplanetary station, which flew near the dwarf planet Pluto three years ago, photographed its next target - an object in the Kuiper belt Ultima Thule (2014 MU69). The picture was taken 16 August from a distance of 172 million kilometers. The span of the New Horizons station around 2014 MU69 is to be held on January 1 2019.
Hole in the porthole
The month ended difficult for astronautics in general and for difficult relations between the Russian Federation and the United States in particular. 30 August on the ISS found a drop in pressure due to leaks in the domestic compartment "Union MC-09". Despite the successful repair and elimination of the consequences of an emergency situation that occurred at an altitude of 400 km overgrown with a huge amount of rumors and speculation thanks to the media and some officials. Even before the conclusions of the commissions and examinations, the insane were declared guilty by the crazy astronauts of NASA, who were urged to go home because of the non-working toilet.
September
Spectrum-WG
The Space Observatory "Spectr-RG" successfully passed thermal vacuum tests. In April, the Russian Space Systems company 2018 completed the manufacture of an onboard radio complex for the telescope. It was the last device that braked the assembly and the beginning of a series of tests before launching space. Earlier, in 2014, the launch of the Spectra-RG did not take place due to problems with surveillance devices: the Russian gamma-ray telescope APT-XC and the German eROSITA x-ray telescope. The developers of ART-XC had to switch to the use of an American mirror, and the engineers from the Institute. Max Planck to review the design of eROSITA.
In March-April, the 2019 spacecraft will be launched using the Proton-M launch vehicle and the DM-03 upper stage. Approximately in 100 days it will have to reach a working position near the libration point L2 of the Earth-Sun system at a distance 1 million km from us. If successful, the Spektr-RG will be the first Russian device to leave Earth orbit. The mass of the device is 2,73 t, the service life is at least 7,5 years.
Delta II
In 2018, not only new boosters have appeared, but some have also retired. 15 September was the last launch of the Delta II. The rocket launched the Earth remote sensing satellite ICESat-2 into Earth orbit to observe the ice cover of our planet.
This media has been used since 1989. Total launches are 155, of which 1 is unsuccessful and 1 is partially unsuccessful. A distinctive feature of the Delta II is the use of toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as fuel in the second stage.
Opportunity
On September 11, attempts began to reestablish communications with the rover caught in the dust storm. They continued throughout September and October, but this did not bring any result.
The above image of the HiRISE camera of the scientific satellite MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) was taken on September 20 from a height of 268 km. The dark point in the center of the white square is the Opportunity rover, standing on the side of the Valley of Perseverance.
MINERVA II
A Japanese research station conducted an operation to reset two MINERVA II probes to the surface of the asteroid Ryugu. The spacecraft began to approach the asteroid, and when the distance between them decreased to 60 m, the spacecraft dropped two cylindrical microprobe MINERVA II.
MINERVA II is an upgraded version of the MINERVA probes used on the first Hayabus. Unfortunately, those probes flew past the Itokawa asteroid.
On board the spacecraft "Hayabusa-2" there are three such probes, two of them are placed in one container. Due to the weak gravity of Ryugu (it is approximately 80 thousand times lower than on Earth), the probes will fall on its surface at a speed of about 0,3 m per second. The mass of one MINERVA II probe is 1,1 kg, the weight in the Ryugu gravitational field is about 0,018 g. The probe has a cylindrical shape. Its diameter is 18 cm, height - 7 cm.
October
MASCOT
October 3 research station "Hayabusa-2" (Hayabusa 2) approached the asteroid Ryugu at a distance of 100 m and dropped the landing probe MASCOT.
MASCOT (Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, mobile asteroid surface surveyor) is a small probe developed by the specialists of the German Space Center (DLR) in close cooperation with the French Space Agency (CNES). It is equipped with a rechargeable battery that will ensure its autonomous operation for 16 hours. MASCOT is the largest of all the landing gear on the Hayabus-2. It was developed by a team that was in charge of the Phila's landing gear for the European Rosetta comet mission, but MASCOT is noticeably smaller and simpler than its predecessor. It has a mass of 10 kg and is comparable in size to a shoe box.
OSIRIS-REx
October 15 US interplanetary research station OSIRIS-REx conducted another correction trajectory. In just a month and a half, 2 December 2018, she will have to reach the asteroid Bennu. The main purpose of the device is to take a sample of the soil from the surface of the asteroid and deliver it to Earth. At that time, the distance from OSIRIS-REx to the asteroid was about 6 thousand kilometers.
New Chinese spaceship
Details about the plans of the CNSA for manned space flight appeared. The new ship will replace the "Shenzhou" ships and, according to the concept, resembles the "Orion" from NASA and the "Federation" from Roscosmos.
Read more here: New Chinese spaceship.
"Union MC-10"
The Soyuz-FG launch vehicle crash forced the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft to make a forced ballistic landing, and another expedition did not make it to the ISS. SAS worked properly and saved the crew. What happened raised a wave of questions and criticism in the direction of Roscosmos. The crisis in the Russian cosmonautics has never been so obvious, especially after the commission’s conclusions about an error when assembling a rocket.
BepiColombo
BepiColombo is the first mission of the European Space Agency for the Study of Mercury. It was developed jointly with JAXA (the Japanese space agency) and consists of two scientific satellites: MPO (Mercury Planetary Orbiter, developed by ESA) and MMO (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, developed in Japan). The devices will get to Mercury together, attached to the MTM platform (Mercury Transfer Module, ESA), after which they will separate and begin separately to carry out their scientific programs.
BepiColombo successfully launched on October 20 in 4: 45 Moscow time on Ariane 5 launch vehicle from a launch site in French Guiana. The flight to Mercury will take 7,2 years. In April, 2020, the unit will perform a gravitational maneuver near the Earth, in October, 2020 and August, 2021 - two spans at Venus and six maneuvers at Mercury from October 2021 to January 2025. Planetary orbit is expected at the end of 2025.
Dawn
The Dawn ("Breaking Dawn") spacecraft was launched in the 2007 year. The purpose of the mission was to study the ancient objects of the main asteroid belt. A distinctive feature of the device was the use of electrojet (ion) sustainer propulsion system. Thanks to her, Dawn was able to explore two objects at once: the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. In the 2011 year, he reached the asteroid, worked for more than a year in his orbit, and then headed for Ceres. Since April 2015, Dawn has been in orbit around a dwarf planet.
After Dawn’s main mission was completed, it was redirected to low orbits. In August, he descended to a height of several tens of kilometers above the surface of Ceres. Next sessions with Dawn were scheduled for October 31 and November 1, but they did not take place. After examining all the possible reasons, experts concluded that the lack of communication was caused by the lack of fuel on board the device. Thus, the mission of Dawn can be considered complete.
In total, over the course of its 11 years in space, this device has flown 6,9 billion kilometers. It will remain in orbit in the next few decades (at least 50 years with a probability of 99%), after which it will fall to the surface of Ceres.
Until Space X
At the end of the month, an ultra-light Zhucu-1 solid-fuel rocket (Zhuque 1, 300 kg per 300-kilometer orbit) from a private Chinese company, LandSpace, flew. During a test launch at the end of October, the rocket failed to go into orbit. The official reason is fuel leakage caused by problems with the third-stage orientation control system.
November
OSIRIS-REx
As they approached the object of study, the American AMC photographed the asteroid Benna from all sides, creating an animation of the rotation of a celestial body.
Watch here: Osiris Rex Mission.
Mission 2020
So far, an unnamed mars rover, planned to pair with Curiosity and replace the lost Opportunity, has received the exact landing site. NASA chose Jezero's crater on the western slope of the Isis plain as a research area.
Orion
The final assembly of the Orion spacecraft began for the EM-1 unmanned mission to fly around the moon. After the arrival of the service module developed by Airbus Defense and Space from Bremen (Germany), the preparation for the mission assigned to 2020 will take 400 days. It will include not only the connection of all units and modules, but also leak tests and testing of all systems of a prospective ship.
Insight. Landing
November 26 AMC Insight successfully landed on the Highlands of Elysius on Mars.
KSLV-II
South Korea continues to work on the creation of the launch vehicle. After the successful launch of Naro-1 in 2013, the Korean Space Agency decided to abandon the development of cooperation with the Russian Federation. In Naro-1 used the first step, developed at the Center to them. Khrunichev based on the universal rocket module (URM-1) "Angara". In KSLV-II, the first stage of its own design will be used.
On November 27, a suborbital flight of the first stage demonstrator KSLV-II took place. On this single-stage rocket, one oxygen-kerosene engine was installed with an 75 tonne. The engine ran 151 with, thereby confirming its characteristics. At the time of its shutdown, the flight altitude was 75 km. The maximum lift height of the rocket (209 km) was reached at 319 second.
December
OSIRIS-Rex. Arrival.
December 3 AMC OSIRIS-Rex reaches the 101955 asteroid Bennu. The list of initial studies includes the creation of a detailed map of the celestial body. Sampling is scheduled for July 2020 of the year, departure for 3 of March of 2021 of the year. The return will take 2,5 of the year, and according to plans the landing will be carried out on 24 September of 2023.
Chang'e-xnumx.
Chang'e-4 was successfully launched from Earth 7 December 2018 of the year on the Long March 3B PH from the Sichan space center. The moon landing is scheduled for the start of the 2019 year. 12 December 2018, the apparatus went into elliptical orbit around the moon.
SpaceShipTwo
In the evening of December 13, a SpaceShipTwo suborbital plane, called the VSS Unity, made its fourth flight. He set the altitude record, climbing 82,7 km. The maximum speed was Mach 2,9. Engine Duration - 60 seconds.
Upon completion of flight tests, VSS Unity will be forwarded to a private aerodrome of Spaceport America in the state of New Mexico. From there, SpaceShipTwo will fly into space with tourists, and it will probably start no earlier than the end of 2019. In the first flight on board will be the founder of the company - Richard Branson. Virgin Galactic has about 700 potential customers who have paid for the full cost of the ticket or paid the advance. Four years ago, the sale of tickets was suspended, but soon it will resume. At the same time, the price of a ticket to space will rise again. Initially, SpaceShipTwo could get for 200 thousand dollars, but then the price increased to 250 thousand. What it will be after the resumption of sales is unknown.
In addition to VSS Unity, a second similar aircraft is under construction, which should be ready in about a year. The construction of two more vehicles, as well as the second WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft will begin in the near future.
The total investment in Virgin Galactic is estimated at $ 1,3-1,5 billion. This amount includes the cost of building an ultra-light LauncherOne air-launched missile.
Information