SpaceShipTwo made the first active flight

About the abmici project of the SpaceShipTwo reusable suborbital spacecraft on the Habré has already been told many times ( competition , photos of SpaceShipTwo , through thorns to the stars ) intensifies in the space tourism market .
And the other day, it seems, the project has entered a new phase - the ship made its first active flight, in which he was able to overcome the sound barrier. All previous flights SpaceShipTwo made only in the planning mode.

On Monday, the White Knight Two carrier aircraft took off from an airfield in the California desert, climbed almost 15 kilometers, at which the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane separated from it, after which pilots Mark Stucky and Mike Alsbury turned on the rocket engine. He worked only 16 seconds, but that was enough for the ship to break the sound barrier, gaining a speed of 1.2 max. Then SpaceShipTwo successfully landed at the airport of departure.
Richard Branson , owner of Virgin Galactic , plans to conduct a few more tests before it becomes possible to fly SpaceShipTwo into space:

A few more test flights with a gradual increase in the operating time of the engine, and we will return here to observe its flight into space.