Good Timing with Virgin Galactic Back Online

With all the discussion about the SpaceX mishap, it was just the right time for Virgin Galactic, another space pioneer, to show it was back on its feet (or, more to the point, back in the air).  The image above shows Virgin Mother Ship Eve carrying the Virgin Spaceship Unity for its first flight ever over Mojave, CA on Thursday September 8, 2016.  This represents the return on a Virgin Galactic spaceship after the crash two years ago in the desert that was ultimately blamed on human error. 

In its press release on this mission, Virgin Galactic stated,

Throughout the entire 3 hour and 43 minute test flight, the flight crew as well our mission controllers and ground crews did the hard work of supporting a crewed test flight of a spaceflight system—great practice for our eventual flights to space...With this flight in the books, our team will now analyze a mountain of flight data, learning what worked well and what could be improved for our next flight test. Only when that analysis is done, along with detailed vehicle inspections, some already-planned work, and potentially more captive carry flights, will we be ready to move into the next phase of test flight.

Just another sign that we need to learn from our mistakes and keep moving forward.