Scaled Composites Spaceshiptwo

Single Jet

SpaceShipTwo represents humanity's first commercial suborbital spaceplane designed to carry paying passengers to the edge of space. Built by Scaled Composites and operated by Virgin Galactic, this air-launched rocket plane is carried aloft beneath the WhiteKnightTwo mothership to around 50,000 feet before igniting its hybrid rocket motor for a powered climb to over 50 miles altitude, crossing the internationally recognized boundary of space. The vehicle then glides unpowered back to a runway landing, giving its six passengers several minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth's curvature against the black of space. The design traces its lineage to SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X Prize in 2004 as the first privately funded spacecraft to reach space twice within two weeks. SpaceShipTwo scales up that concept to carry two pilots and six passengers in a pressurized cabin with large windows. Its feathering reentry system—where the tail booms rotate upward to increase drag and stability during descent through the atmosphere—provides a crucial safety margin that allows the craft to slow down without the precision attitude control required by traditional spacecraft. This innovation earned designer Burt Rutan widespread acclaim for elegantly solving one of reentry's hardest problems. The program has faced significant challenges, including the 2014 loss of VSS Enterprise during a test flight, which led to extensive redesigns and a prolonged path to commercial operations. The second vehicle, VSS Unity, successfully reached space multiple times starting in 2018 and began commercial passenger flights in 2023. Maximum altitude exceeds 280,000 feet, with rocket burn producing approximately Mach 3 before engine cutoff. The hybrid rocket motor burns hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene rubber fuel with nitrous oxide oxidizer, a combination chosen for its relative safety and simplicity compared to traditional liquid rocket propellants. SkyMeter has tracked 24 flights across 6 airframes and 5 operators, with CONEY AG SERVICE INC the largest observed operator.