The mission will aim to more closely match the flight profile that Virgin Galactic plans to use for commercial missions. "This is test flight. You are going to be watching a no-kidding test flight with all of the novelty and excitement and risk that goes along with a real test flight," Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides told reporters Wednesday. Also on board will be a flight test dummy and four unnamed research payloads from NASA's Flight Opportunities Program that will help simulate the weight distribution of having passengers on board. "Incremental flight test programs are by definition open-ended and, to a great extent, each test depends on the data from the test that precedes it," the company said.

Source: CNN December 12, 2018 18:22 UTC