Billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic company’s first commercial suborbital spaceflight for fee-paying tourists on 29 June, 2023 has been held.
The flight, which took the crew to the edge of space, was earlier planned for a launch window between 27 to 30 June, 2023.
The passengers were Colonel Walter Villadei and Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Landolfi both from Italy’s Air Force and Pantaleone Carlucci, an engineer, with Italy’s National Research Council. They were joined by Virgin Galactic’s Collin Bennet and used 13 experiments in conducting a short study on microgravity conditions in the mission.
The Italians paid a long time ago and were selected by Virgin Galactic to start the commercial tourism spaceflight.
The flight is called the Galactic 01 after which it will be a monthly exercise with Galactic 02 in August, 2023.
The pilots for the spacecraft were Michael Masucci and Nicole Pecile while the mothership was flown by Kelly Latimer and Jameel Janjua.
Virgin Galactic had its last test flight to the edge of space on 25 May, 2023 after which it was certified to take tourists to the edge of space to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth for a few minutes.
This was after its inaugural test flight of 11 July, 2021 with Richard Branson and three other members of staff.
The last test flight called the Unity 25 flight comprising VSS Unity, the spacecraft, and the mother aircraft carrier, VMS Eve, took off from the Virgin Galactic runway in Spaceport America in New Mexico.
VMS Eve, flown by Jameel Janjua and Nicola Pecile, dropped off VSS Unity at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 metres) and returned to base.
On disengaging, VSS Unity turned-on its two rocket engines and flew at Mach two to an altitude of 50 miles (80 kilometres) up to the edge of space, enjoying weightlessness for three minutes, before returning and landing at base.
VSS Unity was flown by Mike Masucci and C. J. Sturckow. The passengers were Virgin Galactic’s Chief Astronaut Instructor, Beth Moses, as well as Christopher Huie, Luke Mays, and Jamila Gilbert.
The total duration of the flight, from takeoff to landing, was about 90 minutes.
There is already a long list of waiting space tourists who paid $250,000 for a seat.
photo credit: Virgin Galactic
