Virgin Galactic is going to restart tests to carry passengers

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http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/02/virgin-galactic-is-going-to-restart-tests-to-carry-passengers-to-the-edge-of-space.html

>Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company owned by billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, has been granted a license by U.S. authorities to restart testing of its rocket plane following a fatal crash in 2014.

>The Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA-AST) awarded Virgin Galactic an operator license for SpaceShipTwo, which could lay the groundwork for regular trips to space.

>It's an important step for Virgin Galactic which was rocked by the 2014 incident when an earlier version of SpaceShipTwo was destroyed during a test flight caused by a mistake by one of the pilots. The crash killed one pilot and seriously injured the other.

> Doubts were raised about the future of space travel after this incident, but federal approval has reignited Virgin Galactic's aim to take people to edge of space. In a statement on Monday, the company said the license "was the culmination of several years of in-depth interaction with the FAA", which consisted of in-depth review of the vehicle's system design, safety analysis and flight trajectory analysis.

>Virgin Galactic unveiled its latest version of the SpaceShipTwo earlier this year with design alterations to avoid a repeat of the accident.
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