Builders plan for 2008 tests, leading to passenger flights in late ’09

A passenger-carrying suborbital spaceliner and the airplane that will serve as its first stage are starting to take shape on the factory floors at Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif.

Work on the SpaceShipTwo prototype is moving forward, as is the fabrication of the White Knight 2 mothership, and at this point spaceline operator Virgin Galactic is eyeing late 2009 as the beginning of commercial flights with paying customers.

Scaled Composites is the firm led by aerospace designer Burt Rutan, whose team designed and built SpaceShipOne, the vehicle that made a trio of piloted suborbital flights in 2004, snagging the $10 million Ansari X Prize by completing back-to-back suborbital hops within a two-week time period.