"The test for the new SpaceShipTwo, dubbed VSS Unity at its unveiling in February, was what the Long Beach aerospace startup calls a "captive carry", in which the spaceship stays attached to its carrier WhiteKnightTwo aircraft for the entire flight", reports Samantha Masunaga for the Los Angeles Times. The other pilot, Pete Siebold, was seriously injured. It's a unique aspect of Virgin Galactic's spaceflight program, whose shuttles don't launch from a ground-based pad, but rather from "under the wing of a carrier aircraft". That incident was blamed on a variety of structural issues that were exacerbated by an error made by the co-pilot. It's good to see Virgin Galactic reentering the space-tourism race, and with this being the first aircraft manufactured by the company, it is going to be interesting to see how things progress with them.

Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo, the VSS Unity, takes its first flight with its carrier plane Eve as they soar over Mojave, California on September 8, 2016.

All of those data points will be used to move into a series of glide flight tests, during which VSS Unity is released to fly home on her own, followed by rocket-powered flight tests of increasingly ambitious scope.

Djokovic advances to semis after another shortened match
The Dane won the first 10 games of her match, and it looked like we were headed for a. "That's the position where I want to be". He has had to play only two complete matches and a total of about 6½ hours of tennis to reach the semifinals.

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity space plane and its carrier plane, the Virgin Mothership Eve, take off on their first captive carry flight from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California on September 8, 2016. The climax would come when pilots guide the craft to outer-space heights, in the range of 50 to 60-plus miles (80 to 100 kilometers).

Virgin Galactic's commercial spaceship, VSS Unity, took to the skies above the Mojave Desert on Thursday, the craft's first test run since its predecessor SpaceShipTwo crashed and killed one of its pilots in 2014. About 700 people, including celebrities such as Justin Bieber and Victoria Principal, have paid as much as $250,000 apiece to reserve a spot.

Virgin Galactic test-flew its experimental spacecraft for the first time on Friday, returning to the skies with the help of a launch vehicle for the first time in two years.