Virgin Galactic to Unveil New SpaceShipTwo

Pia Bergqvist

Friday, February 19, 2016 at 11:27 PM ET

Verified

Virgin Galactic is expected to unveil the new version of SpaceShipTwo soon. CNNMoney

Key Takeaways:

Virgin Galactic is set to unveil a new version of SpaceShipTwo, replacing the predecessor that crashed in 2014, with the company leveraging data from previous flights and lessons from the accident.
The new SpaceShipTwo will undergo a multi-stage testing process, starting with ground tests, progressing to attachment and glide tests from a carrier aircraft, and eventually resuming rocket-powered flights to beyond 62 miles above Earth.
While commercial flights are still years away, Virgin Galactic has already secured numerous $250,000 deposits from customers eager to fly into space, with their earliest paying customers outnumbering all previous human space travelers.

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Mojave, California-based Virgin Galactic announced it will soon unveil the new version of SpaceShipTwo, one of a few commercial space ships currently in development vying to take customers into space. This SpaceShipTwo serves to replace the first version, which tragically crashed in 2014, killing one of the two test pilots.

While the new SpaceShipTwo has some differences from its predecessor, Virgin Galactic said in a statement that it is similar enough that the company will “benefit from incredibly useful data from 55 successful test flights as well as the brutal but important lessons from one tragic flight-test accident.”