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Big Law

Virginia Galactic Contracts Boeing Subsidiary to Build ‘Motherships’

Space tourism company Virgin Galactic on Wednesday announced a deal with Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to build two additional carrier aircraft to support its coming spacecraft fleet.

Virgin Galactic currently has one carrier aircraft, or “mothership,” called VMS Eve that is about 14 years old and is undergoing a lengthy refurbishment. The jet-powered mothership plays a key role in Virgin Galactic’s flights by carrying the company’s spacecraft up to about 50,000 feet altitude to launch.

The company said the new motherships are an evolution of the VMS Eve design and will each support up to 200 launches a year. Virgin Galactic currently has two spacecraft in its fleet, VSS Unity and VSS Imagine, and says the former can launch 12 times a year and the latter 26 times a year. But the company’s coming “Delta class” of spacecraft would fly as often as once a week, necessitating multiple motherships to support launches.

Read the source article at cnbc.com

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