US-based Virgin Galactic has received an operating license to fly its new spaceship from the US Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA-AST).

The license was granted after undergoing a detailed review of the vehicle's system design, safety analysis and flight trajectory analysis.

The award of the license has allowed commercial operations of the new version of the SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity.

Unveiled in February, VSS Unity had recently also undergone a taxi test to assess and calibrate its navigation and communications/telemetry systems. During the test, the vehicle was pulled by a Range Rover Autobiography supplied by Virgin Galactic’s automotive partner Land Rover.

“The granting of our operator license is an important milestone for Virgin Galactic, as is our first taxi test for our new spaceship."

Virgin Galactic operations senior vice-president Mike Moses said: “The granting of our operator license is an important milestone for Virgin Galactic, as is our first taxi test for our new spaceship.

“While we still have much work ahead to fully test this spaceship in flight, I am confident that our world-class team is up to the challenge.”

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The company will soon begin the VSS Unity flight test programme.

One of Virgin Galactic’s human spaceflight systems, SpaceShipTwo is a reusable, winged spacecraft designed to repeatedly carry eight people, including two pilots into the edge of the space.

Around 700 people from 50 different countries have already paid deposits to embark on their flights on SpaceShipTwo.

Image: A Virgin Galactic’s automotive partner Land Rover vehicle has pulled Unity during a taxi test. Photo: courtesy of Virgin Galactic.