Virgin Galactic, controlled by British billionaire Richard Branson, has postponed commercial suborbital flights of the Unity spacecraft for the last quarter of 2022, it is reported on the company's website.
Virgin Galactic explained the postponement of the deadline by the need to refine the equipment and check the structural materials of Unity. "One of these recent laboratory tests revealed a possible decrease in the tensile strength of some materials," the report says.
The company added that before the start of commercial operation, the Unity ship will be launched in the interests of the Italian Air Force.
Virgin Galactic noted that the schedule change is not related to a potential manufacturing defect in a component of the flight control system of the suborbital spacecraft, which was reported in September. The company assured that all comments on this equipment have been eliminated.
In the same month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) The United States has completed an investigation into the incident with Unity, on board of which Branson was.
In September, the dismissed director of flight tests at Virgin Galactic, Mark Stuckey, said that a pilot error, not a strong wind, led to the deviation from the initial course of Unity. The former employee stressed that the pilots did not turn off the engine and did not interrupt Unity's flight after the ship left the air corridor, because Branson was on board, who wished to fly on his own ship before another billionaire, American Jeff Bezos.
In July, businessman Branson climbed to a height of more than 80 kilometers on the Unity suborbital spacecraft manufactured by Virgin Galactic's own company. Along with the billionaire, the crew included pilots Dave McKay and Michael Masucci, Virgin Galactic Chief astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, lead Operations engineer Colin Bennett and the company's vice president of government Relations Sirisha Bundle.
Ivan Potapov
