Virgin Galactics Spaceshiptwo has reached a height of 82.7 kilometers on Thursday, which the vessel has for the first time entered space according to the company. In an earlier test, the spaceship reached a height of 52 kilometers.

” SpaceShipTwo, welcome to space “, reported Virgin Galactic Thursday afternoon. The altitude of 82.7 kilometers is considered by the company and the US Air Force as space, but is still below the Kármán line. That is a limit of 100 kilometers that is generally seen as the beginning of space.

At 16:00 on Thursday, the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California rose together with the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft VSS Unity. At a height of 15 kilometers the carrier released the spaceship, after which the two pilots accelerated in sixty seconds to a speed of 2.9 m to reach its final height.

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At 5:15 PM, SpaceShipTwo made its landing on the runway in Mojave. In previous tests this year, in April, May and July, the spacecraft reached heights of 25.7, 34.9 and 52 kilometers, respectively. Ultimately it is the intention that Virgin Galactic will transport space tourists with it. They can then temporarily experience weightlessness and behold the curvature of the earth. For that they have to pay a considerable amount: tickets will cost $ 250,000.

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