Virgin Galactic sends first paying customers to space: Who all flew, What next
The flight came two years after Branson rode along with five other Virgin Galactic personnel for the first fully crewed test spaceflight of Unity in July 2021.
In a long-awaited commercial debut, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. on Thursday sent paying customers to the edge of space for the first time, a milestone in the emerging private spaceflight sector. The VSS Unity craft reached space at about 9:30am local time in New Mexico, carrying six people on board, including researchers from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy.
The Italian Air Force officers unfurled their nation's flag while enjoying a few minutes of weightlessness at 52.9 miles (85.1 kilometres) above sea level. Fifty miles is considered the border of space by Nasa and the US Air Force, though the internationally recognized boundary, known as the Karman Line, is 62 miles high.
Who all were on the VSS Unity spaceplane
Colonel Walter Villadei and Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Landolfi of the Italian Air Force flew on the craft along with Pantaleone Carlucci of the National Research Council of Italy, and Colin Bennett of Virgin Galactic. There were also two pilots on the spaceplane, and two on the carrier plane.
Suborbital space tourism competition
Richard Branson's company has carried employees on several previous test missions, but the latest launch was the first with ticket-holding passengers. The maiden commercial flight came two years after Branson flew in a test flight meant to usher in a new era of lucrative space tourism as it competes with billionaire Jeff Bezos's company, Blue Origin, in the "suborbital" space tourism sector. Bezos, however, has said Blue Origin's suborbital New Shepard rocketship tops the Karman line, unlike Virgin Galatic's spaceplane.
What next
Virgin Galactic suffered a major setback to its commercial spaceflight program when a spaceplane on a test mission broke apart midair, killing the copilot and severely injuring the pilot. The company had already sold around 600 tickets for seats on future commercial flights for $200,000 to $250,000, with movie stars and celebrities among the first to snap up seats. Since then, the company has sold another 200 tickets for $450,000 each. It is now planning its next space mission, Galactic 02, for August, and hopes to make monthly space hops after that.
