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1 / 20Virgin Galactic?s space tourism rocket SpaceShipTwo has made its first solo glide flight.Reuters
2 / 20SpaceShipTwo was carried aloft 13,700 metres by its mothership and released over the Mojave Desert.Reuters
3 / 20Company officials say SpaceShipTwo then landed at an airport runway on its own followed by the mothership. The entire flight took about 25 minutes.Reuters
4 / 20SpaceShipTwo is undergoing rigorous testing before it can carry tourists to space. In the latest test, SpaceShipTwo did not fire its rocket engine to climb to space.Reuters
5 / 20During its first test last year, the sleek, six-passenger suborbital spaceship remained attached to its carrier aircraft throughout the two-hour, 54-minute flight over California's Mojave Desert.Reuters
6 / 20 In the future, the spaceship will be launched from the larger aircraft, fire its rocket and carry passengers on a suborbital thrill ride into space before gliding to a landing for about $200,000 a ticket.Reuters
7 / 20The first captive-carry flight of VSS Enterprise or SpaceShipTwo over Mojave, California. The center mounted spaceship is attached to the "mothership" WhiteKnightTwo for a series of flight tests prior to its first drop test later in the year. AP
8 / 20Virgin WhiteKnightTwo, nicknamed Eve, designed by Burt Rutan and financed by Richard Branson, approaches the Wittman Field site of the Experimental Aircraft Association Convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.Reuters
9 / 20Richard Branson listens to preflight instructions from Lead Project Engineer Bob Morgan as he prepares to fly on Virgin Mothership Eve.Reuters
10 / 20Virgin Galactic's plan calls for WhiteKnightTwo to lift SpaceShipTwo, a pressurized spacecraft, into the atmosphere from a base in New Mexico. When they reach 50,000 feet, the spaceship would detach and blast into space at four times the speed of sound.Reuters
11 / 20The six passengers would experience about five minutes of weightlessness and get a glimpse of Earth. The spaceship would glide back to Earth much like the space shuttle. Take-off to landing is expected to take about 2 1/2 hours.Reuters
12 / 20'Most people never really believed it would be a reality,' said Branson, 'by just trying these things, new things come out of it.'Reuters
13 / 20Virgin Galactic doesn't have a launch date yet, but has taken 300 reservations at 240,800 dollars each and is holding 40 dollars million in deposits.Reuters
14 / 20WhiteKnight2, nicknamed Eve, is the largest composite aircraft ever built and will be the aircraft that ferries the first commercial SpaceShip2 aloft for passenger flight to space.Reuters
15 / 20Burt Rutan, the designer of Virgin Mother Ship Eve and Richard Branson celebrate as the plane, also known as White Knight Two, taxis in at Wittman Field.Reuters
16 / 20Richard Branson gives a thumbs up as he gets pre-flight instructions in preparation to fly on WhiteKnightTwo.Reuters
17 / 20Richard Branson shares a laugh with Pilot Pete Siebold during pre flight training for WhiteKnightTwo.Reuters
18 / 20Burt Rutan, the designer of Virgin Mothership Eve, and Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group of companies, watch an Air Force Thunderbird F-16 ready for flight while waiting to watch the landing of WhiteKnight2.Reuters
19 / 20Richard Branson hands his helmet to Lead Project Engineer Bob Morgan with Pilot Pete Siebold looking on after preparing to fly on Virgin mothership, WhiteKnightTwo.Reuters
20 / 20WhiteKnightTwo has now made 16 test flights. The company will keep testing it until fall, when tests will begin on SpaceShipTwo. Branson himself plans to take the first trip and bring his 92-year-old father and 89-year-old mother with him.Reuters
The sky's no longer the limit for Cecil Field airport in Jacksonville, Florida.
The airport was awarded a federal licence yesterday to fly commercial space vehicles being designed to ferry tourists, researchers and others beyond Earth's atmosphere.
The Jacksonville Aviation Authority, which worked to get its commercial spaceport licensing for four years, plans to offer Cecil Field's 3810 metre long, 61 metre wide runway -- one of the biggest in Florida -- to a range of commercial space operators including Virgin Galactic.
The company, owned by Richard Branson's Virgin Group, last month unveiled the first of six planned suborbital spaceships which initially will fly out of a commercial spaceport in California. Virgin Galactic, which is selling tickets for US$200,000 per seat, is building a base in New Mexico.
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"The big difference between Cecil Field and the New Mexico spaceport is that we have facilities already in place," said Todd Lindner, who has been overseeing development of the Jacksonville spaceport.
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Cecil Field becomes the country's eighth licensed commercial spaceport and the first in Florida cleared to fly space vehicles that take off and land horizontally, like aeroplanes.
"This is a relatively new component to the space industry," Lindner said.
"Up until this point, people are automatically assuming space launches are vertical because we all grew up watching the rockets go up from the Cape."
In addition to suborbital passenger flights like those Virgin is offering, Cecil Field hopes to offer commercial orbital launch services staged from the suborbital craft.
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Lindner said the Jacksonville Aviation Authority is working with several potential customers, but declined to identify them. A study to estimate the potential economic benefit of the spaceport is pending.
"This is giving us options that we didn't have," Lindner said.
Reuters
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