A Lowndes County aerospace manufacturing facility will assist in designing and manufacturing a unique aircraft, which will help launch spaceships into orbit.
Virgin Galactic, a space travel company, offers commercial space flights to clients wishing to experience weightlessness and to see Earth from orbit. A flight costs $450,000; potential customers must first put down a $150,000 deposit according to Virgin Galactic communications specialist Jeff Michael.
They announced a partnership with Aurora Flight Sciences, which maintains a facility near the Golden Triangle Regional Airport, to design and manufacture its next-generation motherships. Aurora is owned by Boeing.
Virgin Galactic’s mothership is a large aircraft that carries the company’s spaceship to an altitude of 50,000 feet before releasing it. The spaceship then uses its own thrust to continue the journey into outer space.
The partnership was announced in a press release issued on July 6 after the companies spent two months developing specifications.
Aurora will build two of these motherships at its facilities in Columbus and Bridgeport, West Virginia. Final assembly will be completed at the Virgin Galactic facility and headquarters in Mojave, California.
“Our next generation motherships are integral to scaling our operations,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in the press release. “They will be faster to produce, easier to maintain and will allow us to fly substantially more missions each year.”
The company aims to have 400 flights per year at its Spaceport America facility in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Virgin has launched no space flights since its first commercial launch in July 2021, according to Michael.
Spaceport America is a Federal Aviation Administration-licensed launch complex and commercial spaceport where companies obtain leases to house spacecraft and launch missions.
Aurora, headquartered in Manassas, Virginia, has more than 30 years experience in aircraft manufacturing, making it a great fit for this project, according to Virgin’s Aerospace Systems president Sami Iyer.
“As a subsidiary of the world’s largest aerospace company (Boeing), Aurora has some of the industry’s top engineers and manufacturing facilities,” Iyer said.
The two-vehicle contract will enable Aurora to immediately begin development. The new motherships are expected to start fly missions in 2025.
The partnership with Aurora comes from a business strategy Virgin Galactic adopted to outsource the manufacturing of the mothership components, allowing its team to focus heavily on design, engineering and the assembly of its aircrafts once Aurora completes construction of the motherships.
“This partnership between Aurora and Virgin Galactic brings together teams that share a passion for aerospace, innovation, and exploration,” Aurora president and CEO Per Beith said.
Online
■ MOTHERSHIP: Find video of mothership in action and Virgin Galactic media images at https://bit.ly/3uYXM9s.
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