Replies to post #216726 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Stunning! .. Galactic Anounces Partnership

.. i couldn't recall re any Galactic partnership, or not ..



8.07.09

Aabar Investments and Virgin Group Agree Equity Investment Partnership in Virgin Galactic

Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments and Virgin Group today announced that they have agreed to enter a strategic partnership, which will see Aabar take an equity stake in the world’s first commercial spaceline – Virgin Galactic. To date Virgin Galactic has been wholly owned and funded by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.

The deal, signed today at the EAA AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin attended by Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group, and Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny, CEO of Aabar. The signing ceremony is taking place alongside Virgin Galactic’s new carrier space launch vehicle, Mothership VMS Eve, who will be making her debut public appearance with a flight demonstration at the show. Excitingly, Sir Richard Branson is due to be onboard the Mothership as a member of the crew for a demonstration flight on Tuesday 28th July.

Under the deal, Aabar will invest US$280m and take a 32% stake in Virgin Galactic’s holding company, valuing the business at approximately $900m. Additionally, Aabar has shown to share Virgin Galactic’s vision to the future and will potentially commit a further $110m to fund a small satellite launch capability. Abu Dhabi will also gain exclusive regional rights, subject to regulatory clearances, to host Virgin Galactic tourism and scientific research space flights. Exciting plans for the future include plans to build spaceport facilities in Abu Dhabi, which demonstrates Abu Dhabi’s commitment to being an international destination of choice and to grow as a leader in tourism, advanced science, technology and higher education.”

Sir Richard Branson said: “We are delighted to partner Aabar in a strategic deal that is a first for Virgin Galactic. The initiative will leverage the solid financial backing of the Aabar group and the pioneering technology and strong global relationships of Virgin Galactic. This exciting deal is indicative of the interesting and high value investments that mark the UAE’s commercial portfolio.”

“This transaction carries multiple potential for the creation of an exceptional platform for space infrastructure such as research labs, a space centre for commercial travel and much more,” said Mohamed Badawy Al-Husseiny.

The new joint venture also proposes to undertake additional development which will enable the space system to launch small satellites at unprecedented levels of cost, reliability and flexibility.

WhiteKnightTwo, VG’s new carrier aircraft is well into its test flight programme and is performing flawlessly. It is the world’s largest all carbon composite aircraft and has a unique high altitude, heavy lift capability.

Please visit www.virgingalactic.com/PartnershipandBransonAboardVmsEve to read more.

http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/galactic-anounces-partnership/

.. loved the Russian and Spanish? (i hope, lol) in your YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH16CkVSutY [with comments] comments ..
and, for no real reason at all, lol, i'm wondering if this could be the Andrei Volkov there ..

Andrei Volkov about the partnership of SKOLKOVO and NES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lGGRH2tanY

.. there are a couple, and the photo's small, just the other i've seen had a narrower face .. no, idea why i wondered about him ..

oh .. this fits a bit ..

Skolkovo innovation center

The Skolkovo Innovation Center is a planned high technology business area being built at Skolkovo near Moscow, Russia. The site aims to be a highly modern complex created to encourage science and technology companies. Although historically Russia has been successful with development of science and technology, its lack of entrepreneur spirit led to government intervention of patents and nonproliferation of Russian tech companies beyond the scope of regional service. This site is tasked with not only the development of technology start-ups but also marketing them correctly. As corporations and individuals become "residents" of the city, proposed projects and ideas receive financial assistance. Skolkovo was announced on 12 November 2009 by then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. The complex is headed by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg and co-chaired by former Intel CEO Craig Barrett. .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skolkovo_innovation_center

.. people who work there would naturally be interested in Branson's
mind-boggling achievement .. all the Galactic videos are incredible ..

[fuagf]

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes: 1 Dead, 1 Injured

.. damn .. .. from below .. ""We are human, and it hurts.""

NBCNews.com - 24 minutes ago

By Alan Boyle

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane exploded and crashed during a test flight on Friday, killing one crew member and seriously injuring another, authorities said.

The explosion came after the plane dropped away from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane and fired up its hybrid rocket engine, said Stuart Witt, CEO and general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The blast scattered debris across a two-mile swath of the desert floor north of Mojave, which is about 95 miles (150 kilometers) outside Los Angeles.

One of the two test pilots aboard the plane was killed, said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, who was among the officials dealing with the crash's aftermath.

The other parachuted to the ground and was injured. That pilot was transferred to Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster, California, according to Kern County Deputy Fire Chief Michael Cody.

VIDEO: Virgin Galactic on Crash: Space is Hard and Today Was a Tough Day NBC News

"We hope that the survivor will be just fine," Youngblood said during a news briefing.

The pilots have not yet been identified, but both of them worked for Mojave-based Scaled Composites, according to Scaled's president, Kevin Mickey. Scaled has played a key role in developing and testing SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic had planned to use this SpaceShipTwo to fly passengers on suborbital trips to the edge of space, beginning as early as next year. A nearly identical rocket plane is already under construction inside a Mojave hangar. More than 700 customers, including celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber, have paid as much as $250,000 to take a ride.

George T. Whitesides, Virgin Galactic's CEO, said the company would press on despite the setback.

"Space is hard, and today was a tough day," Whitesides told reporters. "We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened today, and we're going to get through it. The future rests in many ways on hard, hard days like this. But we believe we owe it to the folks who were flying these vehicles as well as the folks who are working so hard on them to understand this and to move forward."

Witt said Mojave's close-knit aviation community was hit hard by the tragedy.

"When we have a mishap from the test community, we find that the test community is very small," he said. "We are human, and it hurts."

First powered flight in months

SpaceShipTwo's crew was testing the rocket engine in flight for the first time in more than nine months .. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/virgin-voyage/success-spaceshiptwo-celebrates-new-year-test-flight-n7211. The plane was slung beneath WhiteKnightTwo for takeoff from the Mojave Air and Space Port at about 9:20 a.m. PT (12:20 p.m. ET). When the paired planes reached a height of about 50,000 feet, about 40 minutes later, SpaceShipTwo was released for the test.

Witt said the anomaly occurred about two minutes after SpaceShipTwo dropped away and fired the rocket engine, but he didn't see any explosion. "It wasn't because something did happen. It was what I was not hearing and not seeing," Witt said.

Photographer Ken Brown, who was covering the test flight, told NBC News that he saw an explosion high in the air and later came upon SpaceShipTwo debris scattered across a small area of the desert. The WhiteKnightTwo plane and its pilots, meanwhile, landed safely.

Authorities cordoned off the crash site pending an investigation. A National Transportation Safety Board team was expected to get to the crash site Saturday morning. The Federal Aviation Administration said it was also investigating the incident.

Mickey said he expected that the investigation would take several days.


AviationSafety @AviationSafety

#SpaceShipTwo (N339SS) lost during test flight; two crew reportedly ejected.

5:48 AM - 1 Nov 2014

276 Retweets 26 favorites

New kind of fuel tested

During the nine months since the previous rocket-powered test in January, Virgin Galactic switched SpaceShipTwo's fuel mixture .. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/virgin-voyage/virgin-galactic-makes-switch-spaceshiptwos-rocket-motor-n113216 .. from a rubber-based compound to a plastic-based mix — in hopes that the new formulation would boost the hybrid rocket engine's performance.

Mickey said engines using the new type of fuel had been thoroughly tested on the ground. The final pre-flight qualification engine firing took place earlier this month .. https://www.facebook.com/virgingalactic/posts/10152799567989297. Friday's test marked the first time the new fuel was used in flight, but Mickey said "we expected no anomalies with the motor today."

Before Friday's flight, the most recent aerial outing was on Oct. 7 .. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/virgin-voyage/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-glides-through-test-run-n220206, when SpaceShipTwo took an unpowered, gliding flight back to the Mojave runway.

The fatal flight was part of SpaceShipTwo's years-long test program, following up on the successful suborbital spaceflights of the smaller SpaceShipOne rocket plane in 2004. Virgin Galactic had said SpaceShipTwo's first test flight to an outer-space altitude — usually defined as 100 kilometers, or 62 miles — could have taken place before the end of the year.

The company's billionaire founder, Richard Branson, was hoping to ride on the first commercial flight next year. Over the past decade, he and his investment partners have put hundreds of millions of dollars .. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/32189215/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/arab-investment-boosts-spaceship-venture/ .. into the Virgin Galactic venture. After Friday's crash, Branson said in a Twitter update ..

Thoughts with all @virgingalactic & Scaled, thanks for all your messages of support. I'm flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team.

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) October 31, 2014

.. that he was "flying to Mojave immediately to be with the team."



Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane is slung beneath the WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane before Friday's takeoff.

NBC News' Julianne Pepitone and James Eng contributed to this report. NBCUniversal has established a multi-platform partnership with Virgin Galactic .. http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/nbcuniversal-announces-exclusive-partnership-with-sir-richard-bransons-virgin-galactic-to-televis/ .. to track the development of SpaceShipTwo and televise Branson's spaceflight.

First published November 1st 2014, 1:23 am

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/virgin-voyage/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-crashes-1-dead-1-injured-n238376