A scaled model of Virgin Galactic's space tourism vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2) at the Farnborough air show. The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is a suborbital, air-launched spaceplane, designed for space tourism. It is under development by The Spaceship Company, a California-based joint venture between Scaled Composites and the Virgin Group, as part of the Tier 1b program. The Virgin Galactic spaceline plans to operate a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes in a private passenger-carrying service, starting in late 2013 and are already taking bookings, with a suborbital flight carrying a ticket price of US$200,000. The duration of the flights will be approximately 2.5 hours, though only a few minutes of that will be in space.
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