The carrier plane WhiteKnightTwo flies higher than most other aircraft (Image: Virgin Galactic)

Climate science could become an unexpected beneficiary of civilian spaceflight thanks to a deal between Virgin Galactic and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Virgin Galactic is developing a high-altitude plane called WhiteKnightTwo that will carry a passenger rocket, SpaceShipTwo, to a height of about 50,000 feet (15 kilometres). At that altitude, the rocket will separate from the plane and fire, taking its crew to the edge of space.

Smaller versions of the vehicles won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight in 2004.


Now, NOAA has struck a deal with Virgin Galactic under which WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo will be equipped with sensors and monitoring systems that will measure carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels as the two craft fly through the atmosphere. The deal was announced on Tuesday at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, UK.

The craft are especially useful for NOAA because they fly at altitudes that are understudied – most aircraft fly below 50,000 feet. The Concorde used to fly supersonically in the rarefied air at 56,000 feet (17 km) – way above jumbo jets at 40,000 feet (12 km) – but it has been retired.

“The last plane still running that has any capability at those heights is the [English Electric] Canberra bomber, dating from 1949. But there are very few of them left,” says Virgin Galactic chief Will Whitehorn.

Test flights

Outwardly, the Virgin planes will need no modifications to take in air for NOAA’s analyses.

That’s because engineers had already built in the capability to use the special tubes that run the external air to the planes’ speed sensors. “We had hoped we might get this kind of scientific work in the design phase,” says Whitehorn.

In this initial deal, NOAA sensors will be carried on the 200 or so flights planned to test and certify the WhiteKnightTwo prototype.

After these test runs, NOAA and Virgin will later decide whether the idea is worth taking forward into the era of commercial spaceflight, where NOAA equipment could sit alongside paying passengers.

Right now, the 140 passengers that have paid $200,000 upfront for Virgin suborbital flights are undergoing tests in a centrifuge to see if their bodies can safely cope with the acceleration they will experience. Two passengers have so far failed these tests and will not be flying, says Whitehorn.

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