Virgin Galactic Rocket-Powered Flight Dry Run Completed

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, or VSS Unity, has completed its sixth dry run for rocket-powered flights.

The spaceplane still has anywhere between two and nine tests to go before the company starts conducting rocket-propelled tests, but this most recent dry run gave Virgin Galactic a lot of hope for the future, according to Engadget.

Even though Virgin's SpaceShipTwo is not a rocket-powered plane, it has the configuration of one.

For this last glide test, the spaceplane had propulsion components onboard and carried 1,000 pounds of water.

Having that weight of water on the spaceplane enables the aerospace company to make the test as real as possible, considering that's the weight of fuel casing you'll see on a rocket-powered flight.

According to The Technews, VSS Unity was taken 40,000 feet into the air by its mothership VMS Eve — the same way the company conducted the previous glide test.

However, what made this test different was that the VSS Unity didn't omit the water, which is located toward the rear of the plane. In doing so, this gave Virgin Galactic an opportunity to make key observations about how VSS Unity operates when landing while heavier in weight.

Once the spacecraft successfully undergoes more testing, Virgin plans to use it as a way of getting passengers to suborbital space.

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