SpaceShipThree?

[docm]

Rather than up and down this configuration would be capable of transoceanic hypersonic transportation. The booster looks a lot like the artwork Scaled/Virgin showed for LauncherOne (small satellite launcher) at a conference a few months ago.

FlightGlobal article....

As well as SS2, developed under Scaled Composites' Tier 1b programme (SpaceShipOne was developed under Tier 1), Virgin Galctic's president Will Whitehorn has spoken of a hypersonic point-to-point service. This would provide a rapid trans-Atlantic trip or the oft mooted 2h London, England to Sydney, Australia journey.

This would use a vehicle that has been called SpaceShipThree (SS3).

Although SS3 has also been referred to by Whitehorn as an orbital vehicle, and a SpaceShipFour as a possible name for a two-stage micro satellite launching rocket, at the New York SS2 and its carrier aircraft White Knight II unveil Whitehorn told me that SS3 would actually be a point-to-point vehicle travelling outside the atmosphere.

Such a point-to-point vehicle could be a stepping stone to solving the technical challenges for a manned orbital vehicle but for now, Whitehorn, tells me, he expects work to begin on SS3 soon after Virgin Galactic's commercial operations are underway.

Whitehorn envisages a 2012 timeframe for detailed SS3 work to begin using capital market financing, which Whitehorn expects to be available in the wake of a successful Virgin Galactic service.

But why do I think that SS2 could be an insight into SS3? It is because of the choice of a Dyna-Soar inspired design for the suborbital tourism vehicle.

While SS2 will likely not travel any faster than Mach 3, Dyna-Soar was designed for Mach 5. The choice of a twin-fuselage configuration for SS2's carrier aircraft White Knight II is also a potential SS3 related decision.
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[tanstaafl76]

Well for one that illustration looks absurd. While they may have ideas for these sorts of things, they would be a pretty dramatic departure from the design of SS2, which is a relatively straightforward upscale of SS1. If you're doing point to point or orbital travel, I would imagine it also would require a different re-entry mechanism as you are no longer just managing your downward velocity but orbital velocity as well. Especially, as in the (I assume made-up) illustration above you have a giant booster superglued onto the back.

 

[Boris_Badenov]

From the comments section of the article;

By Rob Coppinger
on March 2, 2008 5:49 AM | Reply The illustration is speculation by our senior editorial artist and I, but informed from what we already know about SS2, Dyna-Soar and the Russian work.

I got back from ATK too late on Friday to add any more to this blog posting, I was too tired after a day spent in the Utah based-factories and test sites of the Shuttle and Ares programmes' SRB facilities with the engineers.

I am in the Holiday Inn, Denver, at the moment (2248h), for my flight back to the UK tomorrow but expect a follow-up SpaceShipThree blog this week from me and there will be a new Ares I first-stage story from me, via flightglobal.com.

 

[docm]

My interpretation is that the booster, which looks a lot like what Virgin showed previously as "LauncherOne", would 'chute down after separation and that the SS3 itself would have a hybrid and be a "hardened" vehicle with a TPS sufficient for mach 5-7 reentry. That it looks like SS2 is no accident since the SS2 has a very X-20 Dyna-Soar look to it, perfect for such a mission. Come to think of it XCOR Lynx has a family resemblance too.