Virgin Galactic launched six people into suborbital space on Saturday (June 8), launching a Turkish astronaut and three space tourists on the final flight of its VSS Unity spaceplane.
Unity, attached to the belly of its Eve carrier plane, took off from the runway at Spaceport America Airport in New Mexico at 10:31 a.m. EDT (1431 GMT) and carried it to an altitude of 44,562 feet (13,582 meters) over the next hour, where it was dropped Its rocket engine ignited to transport two pilots and four passengers to space and back. The mission, called Galactic 07, reached an altitude of 54.4 miles (87.5 km) and marked Virgin Galactic’s seventh commercial spaceflight aboard Unity, which will be retired to make way for the new “Delta” class of spacecraft to be launched in 2026. .
“I will need more time to try to process what just happened,” Tuva Atasifer, a Turkish Space Agency astronaut on the flight, said in a post-flight news conference, adding that the view of Earth was indescribable. “It’s not something you can describe with adjectives. It’s an experiential thing… You just feel it in your gut.”
Atasevir’s flight on Galactic 07 was facilitated by Axiom Space, a company that also flew a Turkish astronaut to the International Space Station with SpaceX on a special Ax-3 mission earlier this year. Atasifer was a backup astronaut on the Ax-3 flight and supervised three different experiments on Galactic 07.
Atasever was joined on the Virgin Galactic flight by VSS Unity Commander Nicolas Bissell and Pilot Jamil Janjua. Virgin Galactic pilots Andy Edghill and CJ Sturko, a former NASA astronaut, flew the VMS Eve carrier aircraft.
Related: Virgin Galactic launches the first Ukrainian woman into space aboard Galactic 06
After the plane landed, Virgin Galactic revealed the identities of the three passengers who paid for the flight. She was:
- Anand “Andy” Harish Sadhwani of California;
- Irving Isaac Pergament of New York;
- Giorgio Manenti from Italy.
Sadhawani was born in Houston and has been fascinated with space since he was 5 years old after a ride on NASA’s Saturn V rocket. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and dual master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University. He works as the principal propulsion engineer at SpaceX. He wore the US and Indian flags on his flight suit to honor his country and parents To the task profile.
Pergament is a New York-based real estate developer who grew up in Israel and had a lifelong dream of reaching space. “My life is a combination of my love for my family, my professional success and philanthropy, a constant chase after the thrill of flying, and now reaching for the stars,” he said. In the current situation. He wore the flags of the United States and Israel on his flight suit.
Manenti is a London-based hotel and resort investment strategy consultant who favors travel experiences over physical possessions, according to an assignment profile. He said that seeing Earth from space was a surreal experience. “The feeling of being on the other side is very exciting, this time looking down, admiring the earth deep inside [majestic] Manenti said: Amazing In the current situation. He wore the flags of Italy and the European Union on his flight suit.
The final journey of loneliness
The VSS Unity spaceplane touched down back at Spaceport America at 11:41 a.m. EDT (1541 GMT), marking only Virgin Galactic’s seventh commercial spaceflight and twelfth crewed spaceflight overall. In all, Virgin Galactic has flown the spaceplane only 32 times, including non-space test flights.
But the unit won’t fly anymore. Instead, Virgin Galactic is basing Unity’s SpaceShipTwo design for a new “Delta class” of spacecraft designed to fly more often.
“This vehicle was revolutionary,” Mike Moses, president of Virgin Galactic, said at the press conference following the launch. “We tested it, we launched it, and we showed and proved to the world that commercial human spaceflight is possible with private corporate funding.”
The first fully crewed suborbital spaceflight was launched by Unity, Virgin Galactic founder, billionaire Sir Richard Branson, and others in July 2021 on the Unity 22 mission, which followed three previous test flights with a skeleton crew. By 2023, the company was operating monthly flights for space tourists and research customers.
“So, seven commercial spaceflights, and one spacecraft that flew six times in six months last year, that’s groundbreaking,” Moses said. “The fact that we can bring this car back on a monthly basis is truly revolutionary.”
The new Delta class of spacecraft will be able to fly at least twice a week, about eight times the rate of SpaceShipTwo, with Virgin Galactic planning to build at least two to launch its new fleet.
“In 2026, we will send two spaceships, our mothership Eve, that is, 750 astronauts a year who will go into space,” Moses said of the new fleet’s ability to fly. “This is more than has been reached in space in the 60-year history of spaceflight so far.”
An expensive ride of excitement… and science
Galactic 07 was Virgin Galactic’s second mission of 2024. Its maiden flight of the year, Galactic 06, saw the first Ukrainian woman reach suborbital space.
Tickets for these flights are a big investment, typically selling for $450,000. Travelers on Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see a view of Earth that very few get to see in a lifetime.
The suborbital spaceflight will also carry research payloads from Purdue University and the University of California, Berkeley. According to a company statement, the Purdue experiment focused on “the flow of propellant in the fuel tanks of maneuvering spacecraft,” while UC Berkeley tested a new type of 3D printing in microgravity.
Since 2018, Virgin Galactic has flown payloads as part of NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, and was recently selected to be NASA’s contract flight provider for the next five years.
Axiom Space, a private spaceflight company based in Houston, has completed three crewed flights so far to the International Space Station, and has its fourth mission, (Ax-4), targeted for October at the earliest. The company has partnered with Virgin Galactic on several previous flights.
“Axiom Space’s commitment to enabling access to space and providing opportunities for scientific discovery beyond Earth is closely aligned with Virgin Galactic’s mission,” Tejpaul Bhatia, chief revenue officer at Axiom Space, said in a Virgin Galactic statement. “We are very excited about the upcoming Galactic 07 flight.”
The Galactic 07 mission follows the previous mission in January where an alignment pin unexpectedly separated from VMS Eve after VSS Unity separated. Although no one was in any danger on board the flight, the company notified the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) so that both entities could investigate the issue to prevent it from recurring on future missions.
Virgin Galactic has taken corrective steps to ensure the incident on Galactic 07 is not repeated.
Editor’s note: Space.com editor-in-chief contributed to this report. This story was updated at 5 PM ET to include details about VSS Unity’s final flight and launch success.
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