VIRGIN GALACTIC COMPLETES FIRST GLIDE FLIGHT IN NEW MEXICO

Virgin Galactic’s spaceship VSS Unity landed in the New Mexico desert last Friday, marking its first glide flight from Spaceport America as the company moves toward commercial operations.

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The company announced the flight on social media and shared photos of the craft on the runway and members of the crew stationed far apart around the special carrier plane that ferries the smaller spaceship to high altitude.

After years of development and testing at Mojave Air & Space Port in Mojave, California, Virgin Galactic is close to starting actual operations at its futuristic terminal and hangar in southern New Mexico. The company has not set a date for the first commercial flights but has said it anticipates doing so in 2020.

A small number of test flights are needed before Virgin Galactic can take paying customers on supersonic thrill rides to the lower reaches of space to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of the Earth below. The suborbital flights will reach an altitude of at least 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) before the spaceship glides to a landing.