Kilometer Altitude News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Vertical ascent, that it shuts down, you're looking out the windows, looking at the zero gravity, the momentum is keeping you going higher and higher and higher until in this case about 56 miles, just short of where the 100 kilometer altitude for the x prize was. and because earth's gravity is strong and you haven't given it enough energy, earth's gravity starts pulling the spaceship back down, and one giant parabolic arc. in that time when you're out of the atmosphere, the feather mechanism, which is the back half of the vehicle, winging over, a beautiful innovation by bert butan, to implemen...

See, just to make it clear to anybody who hasn't watched that already, hanging below "eve" is "unity." latched beneath the wing. at 50,000 feet, you'll hear the pilots going through a series of checklists, l 10, l 9, l 8, l stands for launch. literally, they're going through the checklist. when they get to the bottom you'll see them release unity. unity doesn't drop very far. eve pulls away, then unity lights the rocket, the rocket that will carry them up towards 50,000 feet at mach iii. we mentioned it earlier, but this is a hybrid motor that uses both solid and liquid propellants. when they ...

From space port america in new mexico headed to 50,000 feet, where it will detach the actual spacecraft, the vss "unity," which is the one in the middle. >> it will take several minutes to climb to altitude. this is it for the release of the unity 22. we'll let you know the release moment as close as you can look at the sky over space port to see all the action. >> and obviously we will lose that shot fairly quickly. it will take seven minutes to get to 50,000 feet which is awfully fast, by the way, if you fly on commercial flights. commercial flight goes to 37, 40,000 feet generally speaking....

There. it depends on how hot the day is. as tom said, the flights are typically in the morning because it's cooler and the higher air density. it's easier to get to higher altitude. it's also less wind. the winds pick up later in the day and you don't want the winds. anyway so the airplane part of this with the spaceship suspended in the center it will get to about 45,000 feet. the airplane carrying the spaceship will then accelerate and start to pull up and over and there's a release, at that point, where spaceship two will fall and the airplane will wing over and pull away as the weight belo...

Away at the same time that space ship 2 ignites its rockets. the rocket engine is a hybrid engine. it's burning a oxidizer down the center, down the center of a solid fuel, rubber. and it is a rough ride. that engine is nice, smooth rocket engine like leland experienced on the solid rocket boosters. it's going to be a rough ride. it's loud. it's got a lot of vibration and it's going to be firing for a couple minutes. at the same time that the pilots are pointing the nose of space ship 2 literally straight up at the sky to get as much altitude as possible. and when the engine shuts down after t...