Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) The United States is investigating an incident with a deviation from the course of the Virgin Galactic Unity-22 spacecraft, which threatened it with an emergency landing, The New Yorker magazine reported on Wednesday, September 1.
On July 11, Unity was launched from the spaceport in New Mexico, with billionaire Richard Branson on board, rose into the air, being attached to the bottom of the carrier aircraft. At an altitude of about 15 km, the spacecraft separated from it and with the help of its own engines rose to an altitude of 86 km, thereby going beyond the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere designated by the US Air Force, but is located below the Pocket line (more than 100 km, a space flight according to the classification of the International Aviation Federation), follows from data obtained from the web service for monitoring the position of aircraft Flightradar24.
A few minutes later, Unity began to descend in glider mode and successfully landed on the runway of Spaceport America (New Mexico). However, at the same time, the spacecraft deviated from the trajectory that lay within the airspace allocated by the regulator for this flight. One of the versions of the incident was called the possibility of Unity engines running a few seconds longer than planned during takeoff.
It is noted that a red light came on in the cockpit, warning of a deviation from the set course, but the flight continued. The deviation threatened an emergency landing of the rocket plane outside the runway (runway) and violated FAA requirements.
In turn, representatives of Virgin Galactic admitted that Unity-22 for more than a minute and a half did not descend along the planned trajectory. At the same time, according to Virgin Galactic, the ship's deviation from the course was provoked by winds in the upper atmosphere. The test pilots acted according to the instructions, and such incidents are worked out during the preparation for flights, the company stressed.
Initially, the launch of Unity-22 was planned for 16: 00 Moscow time, but Virgin Galactic postponed it for an hour and a half due to weather conditions.
Despite the interference in the broadcast, Branson was able to say a few words from Unity, congratulating the audience on an important event.
On June 25, Virgin Galactic received approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to launch customers on suborbital flights from New Mexico at a price of $250 thousand per seat.