Here’s a set of photos from Saturday’s WhiteKnightTwo overflight of Las Cruces that I took at the local airport. Enjoy!

A short video I shot with a pocket HD camera (Kodak Zi6) of one of the low overflights of Las Cruces International Airport by WhiteKnightTwo on Saturday. For better viewing go to the video on YouTube and be sure to select the HD option to see it in its full glory.

As promised, WhiteKnightTwo did make an appearance in the skies over Las Cruces on Saturday morning. The aircraft took off from Phoenix and, at around 9:30 am MDT (11:30 am EDT) made a series of three low passes over the airport. WK2 made a pair of passes over the 8/26 runway and then, after taking about 10 minutes to fly over the city itself, returned to make a nearly touch-and-go approach on runway 30, coming within a few feet of the runway before ascending, circling the airport once more at altitude, and departing.

The flybys were witnessed by a small crowd at the airport (on the order of a few dozen people), including a handful of media (myself included) who were able to get runway-side seats for the flybys. Everyone, even the Virgin staff at the airport, seemed impressed to the point of awestruck about the plane’s appearance. After the flybys WK2 then flew back to Mojave without incident.

The picture above is a tiny sample of much larger number of photos I took this morning; I hope to post more later this weekend after I return home.

Other than WhiteKnightTwo’s no-show, there wasn’t much in the way of breaking news (pun unintended) from Friday’s Spaceport America groundbreaking event in New Mexico. The picture above shows the actual ceremonial groundbreaking, eschewing shovels in favor of some heavy equipment that will likely soon be put to use with actual spaceport construction. Later the assembled dignitaries scooped up spoonfuls of dirt that was poured into an amateur rocket and launched.

I’ll have some more details about this event soon, but first I’m going to Las Cruces airport to try and see WhiteKnightTwo before I have to head back home…

It appears that (weather permitting) WhiteKnightTwo will make an appearance in New Mexico skies on Saturday morning. Details are in the press release below:

VIRGIN GALACTIC MOTHERSHIP TO FLY OVER LAS CRUCES SATURDAY MORNING JUNE 20

LAS CRUCES, NM – Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo vehicle is expected to fly over the Las Cruces International Airport at around 9:30 AM on Saturday, June 20. The aircraft was originally scheduled to fly over Southern New Mexico on Friday as part of the groundbreaking ceremonies for Spaceport America. Due to a minor technical issue with an actuator, WhiteKnightTwo made a technical stop in Phoenix. Due to approaching thunderstorms, it was decided not to move forward on Friday.

Weather permitting, the WhiteKnightTwo is expected to arrive around 9:30 AM and circle the Las Cruces International Airport three times before beginning its return trip to Mojave, California.

The flight of the WhiteKnightTwo is the culmination of groundbreaking events planned around Friday’s formal groundbreaking for Spaceport America, the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

As you may have heard by now, WhiteKnightTwo was unable to make its planned flyover of the groundbreaking ceremonies for Spaceport America on Friday. Flightglobal.com has a good summary of the aborted flight, which ran into problems when an actuator warning light came on during the flight, apparently just as they reached the Arizona-New Mexico border, according to the flight track on FlightAware. The plane diverted to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, where as of this writing (7:15 pm EDT) it still is.

Virgin Galactic president Will Whitehorn broke the news of the diverted flight during the groundbreaking ceremonies at the Spaceport America site. “Today on flight 10 at 47,000 feet, the pilot saw an actuator light go on, and they have decided, as a matter of pure precaution, to land at Phoenix to check the plane,” he said at the end of his prepared remarks. “That’s normal in a test program. So it’s not going to be here shortly, but they’re hoping to come here later on in the day, or if not, tomorrow.” Whitehorn said afterwards that they diverted when they saw that warning light “despite the fact that there’s no problem with the aircraft at all.

Actually, New Mexico won’t be seeing WK2 later Friday or Saturday. I talked with Steve Landeene, executive director of Spaceport America, upon our return to Las Cruces, and he said he advised them to fix the problem with the plane and simply fly back to Mojave. The major reason for that is the lack of advance notice to tell people when and where the flyover would take place. Instead, they’re considering having WK2 make another trip to New Mexico at a future date, when sufficient advance notice can be relayed to the public.

“So I do apologize that you won’t be seeing WhiteKnightTwo in the next hour and a half, but that doesn’t matter to us because we know it’s capable of doing the job it’s going to do,” Whitehorn said. “It’s early in its test flying program; it’s only flight 10. We’re planning over 200 flights in the program; a bigger test program than Concorde had, because we are going to make sure that no one gets in that plane–commercially, scientifically, or industrially–unless it’s going to be 100 percent safe for them, 100 percent safe within the terms that we can be able to provide in the future.”

Update 7:35 pm: Stand by: there may be a WK2 appearance tomorrow morning in New Mexico after all. More details later tonight.

Today is the groundbreaking for Spaceport America, and events kicked off late yesterday with a public event on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces featuring Gov. Bill Richardson (speaking above) and representatives from the city, university, FAA, and Virgin Galactic. No news came out of that event, with the speeches largely congratulating Virgin and local and state officials for their work getting the spaceport from a concept to something that will actually start to be built. There was also a strong emphasis on the jobs, especially high-paying high-tech positions, that the region hopes the spaceport will create.

One other item: at a VIP reception after the NMSU public event, Will Whitehorn of Virgin Galactic announced that SpaceShipTwo will be unveiled and flown for the first time on December 7. Presumably that flight will be a glide test, not a powered flight.

This week the Personal Spaceflight Federation announced it was changing its name to the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and unveiled a new web site at the commercialspaceflight.org domain name. Why the change from the PSF to the CSF? According to the industry association, it’s a recognition that the companies who are members do more than personal spaceflight (aka “space tourism”): “There are so many uses for commercial access to space, and we want to emphasize the broad cross-section of potential markets for our members’ products and services,” CSF president Brett Alexander said in the statement.

I had heard a few weeks earlier that this name change was in the works. One reason for the change is that, as the statement notes, members companies are not exclusively focused on space tourism. Another reason, though, may have been that the term “personal spaceflight” really hasn’t gained wide acceptance in the field, or the general public. While some might cringe at “space tourism”, you’re still far more likely to hear that term as opposed to “personal spaceflight” or other alternatives. And if you have to explain what “personal spaceflight” is every time you use the term, it may be time to switch gears.

(I will add here that while that may be the case for the PSF/CSF, I have no immediate plans to change the name of this blog.)

The CSF also announced yesterday that Mark Sirangelo is the new chairman of the organization, succeeding Alex Tai of Virgin Galactic, who is stepping down after completing a three-year term. Sirangelo is currently executive vice president of Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC); he had been chairman and CEO of SpaceDev prior to that company’s acquisition by SNC.

Flightglobal.com reports that WhiteKnightTwo has completed two more test flights in recent days, which appear to clear the way for the aircraft to make its first long-distance flight on Friday to fly over the groundbreaking ceremonies for Spaceport America in New Mexico. A one-hour test flight on June 11th (as noted in the flight logs) was monitored by the FAA, giving pilot Pete Siebold a type rating on the aircraft. A ninth test flight on Monday, not yet in the logs, apparently was planned to be the highest yet, approaching altitudes of 50,000 feet (15,000 meters). [Update: according to the flight logs, this was a 7.5-hour flight that reached 52,400 feet (16,000 m).]

Assuming all went well with that flight, WK2 would seem to be ready for Friday’s groundbreaking ceremonies at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. (A WK2 flyover is included in the schedule “contingent upon weather and aircraft test flight schedule conditions”.) Right now weather shouldn’t be an issue, with a forecast of mostly sunny skies and highs of 90-95°F.

WhiteKnightTwo’s test program continued this week with a seventh test flight, Scaled Composites revealed in the test logs for the program. The flight set new records for altitude (45,000 feet/13,700 meters), speed (340 knots/630 km/h) and duration (6.1 hours). Plans still call for the aircraft to make a flyby at the Spaceport America groundbreaking next Friday in New Mexico.