Yesterday  SpaceShipTwo spacecraft built by Virgin Galactic, millionaire Richard Branson’s company, has passed a key test performing a flight with its engine on running past the speed of sound. This was a crucial step towards the start of commercial suborbital flights.

The SpaceShipTwo spacecraft is a spaceplane, which is an aircraft capable of flying over the so-called Kármán line which by convention delimits the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space. It’s located at the altitude of 100 km (a little more than 62 miles) on the mean sea level. For this reason, it’s a hybrid between an airplane and a spaceship.

The SpaceShipTwo spacecraft has been developed based on the first prototype, the SpaceShipOne, already produced and tested a decade ago. This new model is the one that should be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration to have a license for commercial transport. Richard Branson’s purpose is mainly to provide space tourism services.

In recent years, several tests of the spacecraft SpaceShipTwo were already carried out but only making it fly like a glider after being dropped from its mother ship, called White Knight Two. The engine was tested separately so yesterday’s test was a major step forward to a regular service.

The White Knight Two, launched from the Mojave Air and Space Port, brought the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft up to just over 14,000 meters (47,000 feet) high then dropped it. This time the pilot turned on the engine for 16 seconds, reaching a speed of about Mach 1.2, or 1.2 times the speed of sound, and an altitude of just over 17,000 meters (about 56,200 feet).

Everything worked out regularly and the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft returned regularly to the Mojave Air and Space Port landing like an airplane. In the end, the test lasted just over 10 minutes but it was really important because it demonstrated that the aircraft performed smoothly.

In the coming months new tests will be carried out, eventually reaching an altitude of 110 km (about 65 miles) and a top speed of 4,000 km/h (about 2,500 mph), a real space flight. The SpaceShipTwo spacecraft can carry up to six passengers and if all goes well commercial flights could begin in late 2013 or in 2014.

The ticket for a suborbital flight on the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft isn’t exactly cheap as it costs $200,000, yet many flights have been already booked for quite some time. Now it might be a matter of less than a year before paying passengers can try this extraordinary flight.

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