The private spaceflight company Virgin Galactic scored another successful drop test of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spacecraft today, the latest in a series of smooth solo glides over the California desert for the commercial spaceship.

SpaceShipTwo, designed and built by the Mojave-based company Scaled Composites, was released from its huge mothership a little after 8 a.m. local time today (Jan. 13) and soared in glide mode back to Earth to a runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port. The high-altitude flight did not reach space, but was the fourth in a series of demonstration flights ahead of an actual suborbital spaceflight test.