VSS Enterprise Makes Fully Crewed Flight

The Virgin Galactic spacecraft VSS Enterprise made its first successful fully crewed test flight on July 15, 2010.

Enterprise is one of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo class of spacecraft.

During the test flight, VSS Enterprise remained attached to its mothership, VMS Eve, the first of Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo fleet of motherships.

The test flight over California's Mojave Desert lasted for 6 hours and 12 minutes.

While the spaceship was in flight, the onboard systems of both VSS Enterprise and VMS Eve were checked.

Michael Alsbury and Peter Siebold made up VSS Enterprise's crew, while VMS Eve's crew consisted of Peter Kalogiannis, Brian Maisler and Mark Stucky.

This was SpaceShipTwo's third captive flight, and WhiteKnightTwo's 33rd. WhiteKnightTwo has made four flights in the last month.

SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo were built by Scaled Composites, a California company that was founded by aerospace engineer Burt Rutan.

Tickets for a flight on SpaceShipTwo cost $200,000.

SpaceShipTwo will carry space tourists to suborbital space, where they will have the chance to experience weightlessness and see the Earth from space.

The spacecraft will hold two pilots and six passengers.

During suborbital flights, Eve will carry Enterprise to about 50,000 feet above the Earth. Enterprise will then use its rocket engine to launch itself into space.