Virgin Galactic conducted its first suborbital commercial spaceflight from New Mexico’s Spaceport America on Thursday. The flight took off at 8:30 a.m. local time and touched down at 9:42 a.m. carrying three crew members and three paying passengers from the Italian air force and the National Research Council of Italy along with 13 research payloads. For the mission, the VSS Unity spacecraft was released from the company’s VMS Eve launch platform at 44,500 feet, reaching a maximum altitude of 52.9 miles and top speed of Mach 2.88 before returning to the spaceport.
“Today, our team successfully flew six people and more than a dozen research payloads to space in VSS Unity, our unique, suborbital science lab,” said Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier. “This historic flight was our first commercial flight and our first dedicated commercial research mission—ushering in a new era of repeatable and reliable access to space for private passengers and researchers.”
Virgin Galactic is planning to launch its next commercial flight, dubbed Galactic 02, in August, after which it is aiming to conduct monthly spaceflights. Galactic 02 will be the company’s first spaceflight to carry private passengers. As previously reported by AVweb, Virgin Galactic was approved for commercial passenger operations by the FAA in June 2021. The company has reportedly sold around 800 spaceflight tickets at prices ranging from $200,000 to $450,000 to date.
