Turns out, Richard Branson’s historic Virgin Galactic flight flew outside of its designated airspace for 1 minute and 41 seconds. Here's what happened.
Richard Branson described his recent trip to the edge of space as “just magical” — but it had a few bumps.
“The craft was about 20 miles in the air above the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico, and climbing, traveling more than twice the speed of sound,” Schmidle wrote. “But it was veering off course, and the light was a warning to the pilots that their flight path was too shallow and the nose of the ship was insufficiently vertical. If they didn’t fix it, they risked a perilous emergency landing in the desert on their descent.
Related: Billionaire space race: As Jeff Bezos blasts off, here’s how his flight compares to Richard Branson’s trip The company describes the Unity 22 mission as “a safe and successful test flight that adhered to our flight procedures and training protocols.” When high altitude winds changed the trajectory of the spacecraft, “the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters. Our pilots responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions exactly as they have been trained and in strict accordance with our established procedures.
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