Washington. Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight arrived in space on Thursday, the company founded in 2004 by British millionaire Richard Branson announced.
The company has already flown into space five times, but so far its only passengers have been its employees. Now he did it with the Italian Air Force as a client.
Four passengers traveled aboard the VSS Unity spacecraft: two senior Italian Air Force commanders, an engineer from the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and a Virgin Galactic employee who will accompany them. Two pilots were at the controls.
The spacecraft has exceeded 80 kilometers in altitude, the limit that the US military says marks the beginning of space, a commentator announced on a live video from the company.
“Welcome to space, astronauts,” said a delighted Sirisha Bandla, a Virgin Galactic employee who has made the trip in the past.
Once in weightlessness, an Italian flag was unfurled in the cockpit.
The mission, named Galactic 01, took off from the Spaceport America base in the desert state of New Mexico.
A huge plane took off at 08:30 local time from a conventional runway.
About an hour later, at about 15 kilometers high, it released the craft, which resembles a large private jet.
It started its engine and accelerated vertically. For a few minutes, in zero gravity, passengers were able to untether themselves from their seats and float in the cabin.
The aircraft then returned gliding to land on the same runway.
Branson himself made this space trip in July 2021. Right after the US Aviation Agency (FAA) immobilized the ship to investigate a trajectory deviation during this flight.
Virgin Galactic then announced that it was halting operations to upgrade the ship, but the pause lasted longer than expected.
In May, the company carried out its last test flight.
monthly flights
It has been expected for years to start commercial operations. Some 800 customers have already purchased tickets at a price that started at between $200,000 and $250,000 per passenger and rose to $450,000.
Virgin Galactic’s space program is also years behind schedule due to, among other things, a 2014 accident that killed a pilot.
Thursday’s flight has a scientific vocation, with several experiments on board, on the behavior of liquids in weightlessness, the bodily reaction of passengers, etc.
“Virgin Galactic’s research missions will usher in a new era of repeatable and reliable access to space for government and research institutions,” said Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier.
In August it will carry out a second mission, Galactic 02, and thereafter Virgin Galactic promises space flights every month.
The company competes with billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which also offers short suborbital flights and has already sent 32 people into space.
But since an accident in September 2022 during an unmanned flight, his rocket has been on the ground. Blue Origin promised in March to resume spaceflight “soon.”
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