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Los Angeles: Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson unveiled the “mothership” for his forthcoming spacecraft at a ceremony in the Mojave Desert, outside Los Angeles on Monday.
Dubbed WhiteKnightTwo, Virgin Galactic’s plane, designed by Scaled Composites, will fly to an altitude of roughly 50,000 feet before dropping a spacecraft, named SpaceShipTwo.
The first flights of WhiteKnightTwo, an all-carbon composite aircraft, are expected to take place later this year, with Spaceship Two being attached for a maiden flight sometime in 2009. The first of the WhiteKnight2 crafts has been christened " Mothership Eve" in a tribute to Branson's mother.
By 2010, Virgin may be ready to launch passengers into space. According to the company, some 200 passengers have agreed to pay $200,000 for a seat on those first space flights.
"The rollout of WhiteKnightTwo takes the Virgin Galactic vision to the next level and continues to provide tangible evidence that this most ambitious of projects is not only for real but is making tremendous progress towards our goal of safe commercial operation," said Branson.
"Virgin Galactic is central to our ambition at Virgin to become the world’s leading group in the operation of energy and environmentally efficient transportation, in the air, on the ground and in space," he said.
The craft sports a wingspan of some 140 ft, the largest ever for a carbon composite aircraft.
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