Virgin Galactic will resume SpaceShipTwo flights this year.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic company, as promised by its creator, is renewing the test flights of the SpaceShipTwo . The first ship of the series crashed during one of the flights, the accident happened on October 31, 2014.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB) found out that co-pilot Michael Alsbari gave the command too early to change the configuration parameters of the ship's tail. As a result, the ship, which did not reach the desired speed, crashed. The first pilot, Pete Sebold, was able to eject and survive.
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Now the company has almost completed the new SpaceShipTwo - the project’s readiness is 90%, including both the hull and the spacecraft control systems. The design of the ship meets all the requirements of the NTSB, in addition, Virgin Galactic engineers are now improving the ship in order to make it even safer.



According to Richard Branson, flights will be resumed very soon - faster than anyone can expect. I would like to hope that this time everything will go smoothly for the company, and there will be no mistakes in management (pilot or computer errors) or equipment failures.

By the way, Branson had previously promised that he would become the first passenger of his ship, after the start of space flights. Last year, Virgin Galactic became the first company to receive a license for space tourism.