After 5 previous missions, Virgin Galactic successfully completed its first commercial spaceflight on 29 June. Taking off from Spaceport America in New Mexico at 9 am GMT, the Galactic 01 shuttle safely landed back one hour and 12 minutes later.
A carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, took the spaceship, VSS Unity, to the altitude of 15,000 metres, after which Eve detached while Unity turned on its engines and soared to suborbital space. The crew, comprising three scientists from the Italian Air Force and the Italian National Research Council and one Virgin Galactic Pilot, reached an altitude of 87,000 metres, spending about 10 minutes in microgravity conditions before starting the descent.
This historic mission is Virgin Galactic’s first commercial spaceflight and represents a new era in government funded commercial human-tended research missions.
Virgin Galactic
The aim of the mission, called Virtue 1, was to conduct 13 human-tended and autonomous experiments which examine biomedicine thermos-fluid dynamics and the development of innovative and sustainable materials in microgravity conditions. The researchers also evaluated and measured hypergravity to microgravity transition effects on the human body, including both biological and physical data properties.The crew was equipped with wearable research payloads and sensors and autonomous research payloads were also mounted in the cabin on Virgin Galactic’s payload rack system to collect further data.
“I am beyond proud to be a part of this historic spaceflight. Galactic 01 is Italy’s first commercial suborbital research spaceflight, and an amazing achievement made possible thanks to the long-lasting collaboration between the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy. During the centennial year of both Italian institutions, we fly to the highest point of our history”, Col. Walter Villadei said after landing back on Earth.
While this first commercial spaceflight was intended for research, Galactic 02, planned for take-off in august, will be reserved for private astronauts. After this, Virgin Galactic plans to fly tourists to space each month. According to the company, 800 customers have already purchased their tickets for between $200,000 and $450,000.
