The Virgin Galactic spaceplane the first time made up "space height"

A Private us space company, Virgin Galactic conducted another test of a suborbital tourist spacecraft, and almost conquered the frontier of space height. The company had previously said that, as the U.S. air force to mean a height of about 80 km. the Spaceplane rose to a height of 82.7 kilometers above the Earth's surface. About the successful launch, the company announced via Twitter.

In the sky, the spacecraft lifted SpaceShipTwo aircraft carrier WhiteKnightTwo. As with all the previous launch was carried out from the airfield in Mojave desert (state of California).

Lovely shot of takeoff! WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo take to the skies,

— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic)

Rising to a height of about 14 kilometers, the plane freed the spaceplane, the latter included a rocket engine, and after 42 seconds of operation of the accelerator, passing the stratosphere and entered the mesosphere, reaching a height of nearly 83 km. The company adds that SpaceShipTwo exceeded the speed of sound in 2.9 times.

To fly the mesosphere represents a sort of "dead zone" — the air is too thin to support aircraft or balloons (to a height of 50 km the air density is 1000 times less than at sea level), and at the same time too dense for flight of artificial satellites in a low orbit.

SpaceShipTwo Spaceship looking back on Earth