AirSpaceMag

Enterprise's First Captive Flight

Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise, the civilian-built and -flown spaceship that will loft six paying tourists and two pilots on suborbital flights for $200,000 per customer, made its first captive carry flight on March 22, 2010 beneath its mothership WhiteKnightTwo over the southern California desert. The two craft were in flight for two hours and 45 minutes and reached 45,000 feet. Both were built by Scaled Composites, the Mojave, California company founded by Burt Rutan. The flight marks the beginning of a test program that will progress through 2010 and 2011 from captive carry to release-and-glide flights, and finally to rocket powered flight tests.

( Video: Virgin Galactic )