09 November 2010
Building the spaceships
Work has got under way on the building of a new production facility for spacecraft at Mojave, California. The new assembly hangar will be big enough to house a 737 aircraft. Within its space, work will be able to proceed on two motherships and two spacecraft at the same time.
The Mojave Air & Space Port is the site of the new development, which has been commissioned by The Spaceship Company, a new company founded by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Corporation.
It’s one more milestone achieved in a year which has seen the first two glide flights of SpaceshipTwo and also the completion of Spaceport America’s new runway in New Mexico.
At the dedication of the new runway in October, Sir Richard Branson spoke of the way in which the pace of events was moving forward.
'The last few weeks have been some of the most exciting in Virgin Galactic' development. Our spaceship is flying beautifully and will soon be making powered flights, propelled by our new hybrid rocket motor, which is also making excellent progress in its own test program. The investment deal with our new partners Aabar has successfully closed, securing funding for the remainder of the development prgram and we are seeing unprecedented numbers of poeople coming forward to secure their own reservations for this incredible experience.' flights, propelled by our new hybrid rocket motor, which is also making excellent progress in its oOur spaceship is flying beautifully and will soon be making powered flights, propelled by our new hybrid rocket motor, which is also making excellent progress in its own test program. The investment deal with our new partners Aabar has successfully closed, securing funding for the remainder of the development program and we are seeing unprecedented numbers of people coming forward to secure their own reservations for this incredible experience. To be here in New Mexico to witness this historic moment is the perfect end to a great month.”wn test program. The investment deal with our new partners Aabar has successfully closed, securing funding for the remainder of the development program and we are seeing unprecedented numbers of people coming forward to secure their own reservations for this incredible experience. To be here in New Mexico to witness this historic moment is the perfect end to a great month.”