US spaceship factory set to begin

A production facility that would build the world's first fleet of commercial spaceships is set to begin construction on Tuesday at the US' Mojave Air and Space Port.

The 6317 sq metres (68,000 sq feet) facility, one of the first aircraft assembly plants to be built in the region in decades, will be home to The Spaceship Co, or TSC - a joint venture owned by Mojave-based Scaled Composites and British billionaire Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic.

TSC hopes to complete the complex by September. It expects to build three White Knight aircraft, which resemble massive flying catamarans because each has two fuselages, and five smaller SpaceShipTwo rocket planes.

They would be used this way: A rocket plane with six passengers on board, attached to the wings of a White Knight mother ship, would be flown to 50,000 feet (15,240m), where it would be released. Then the rocket engine would ignite and propel the plane into sub-orbit.

TSC expects to employ up to 170 people when production is in full swing. It has begun posting job openings on its website for engineers and technicians.

Virgin Galactic, which says it has taken reservations and deposits from more than 380 people, hopes to make its first passenger flight next year from the yet-to-be-finished Spaceport America in New Mexico.

The craft is to climb to the edge of space, about 60 miles (96.54 km) above the Earth's surface.

At that sub-orbital altitude, passengers experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. The price for the experience: $US200,000 ($A197,882).

The White Knight carrier plane and the SpaceShipTwo rocket ship are in the midst of a test-flight program in Mojave.

The idea was developed by Burt Rutan, a pioneering aerospace engineer who founded Scaled Composites. Last week, Rutan announced that he plans to retire in April.

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