Virgin Galactic's space tourism rocket SpaceShipTwo may fly free in its first glide test later this year, a company official said Friday.
The six-passenger spaceship has been carried aloft three times attached to the wing of its special jet-powered mothership, including a July 15 flight with two pilots aboard for the first time.
That flight, conducted by spaceship-builder Scaled Composites LLC over California's Mojave Desert, allowed the crew to evaluate all systems and functions in the air, said Stephen Attenborough, an executive with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic in London.
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