The team at Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic passed a milestone today with the first feathered flight of SpaceShipTwo. The flight is the first test of the re-entry configuration for the spaceship and comes as Scaled is in the middle of a busy month of flight testing for the spacecraft.

Test pilot Pete Siebold was at the controls of SS2 during the flight with Clint Nichols sitting in right seat. They were carried to 51,500 feet by WhiteKnightTwo and released. After establishing a stable glide, SS2 was put into the feather configuration which was developed by Burt Rutan with the SpaceShipOne program as a way to simplify reentry into the atmosphere after achieving sub-orbital flight.

Siebold said the spaceship flew well and there were no surprises on the flight , "this morning's flight was a test pilot's dream."

In the feather position, the tail of SS2 is folded 65 degrees upwards with reference to the fuselage (pictured above). This allows the space craft to descend nearly vertically back into the atmosphere while maintaining an airspeed slow enough to prevent extreme heating on the fuselage.

The feathered portion of the flight is designed to be simpler than flying the spaceship back into the atmosphere as was done by the X-15 back in the 1960s. But the ride is still a very dynamic one with SS2 descending like a shuttle cock with some swaying and pendulum motions while the pilots experience several times the force of gravity.

During today's test flight Siebold kept SS2 in the feather position for approximately one minute and 15 seconds with a descent rate of 15,500 feet per minute. The tail was unfeathered and returned to the normal position and landed at the Mojave airport 11 minutes after being released from WhiteKnightTwo.

Scaled Composites is expected to continue its busy flight test schedule in the coming weeks. The next major milestone flight will be the first powered flight of SpaceShipTwo, and then the first sub-orbital space flight. There will be numerous intermediate flights in various configurations to fully expand and test the flight envelope of SS2.

Virgin Galactic has said they hope to start offering passenger space flights beginning next year, pending the successful completion of flight testing.

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Photo: Clay Center Observatory via Virgin Galactic*