Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides said the company could resume rocket-powered test flights with SpaceShipTwo "hopefully quite soon" now that the spaceliner's rocket motor has passed vital qualification tests. Those engine motor tests, he added, were completed last week.

"We've done a lot of development tests over the years, but what we've been doing recently are qualification tests where you're firing the same motor design multiple times to make sure you're seeing the same thing every time," Whitesides told Space.com Wednesday (Oct. 15) here at the International Symposium on Personal and Commercial Spaceflight. "So now we feel ready to put that motor on the spaceship."