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 sector of private spaceflight. The VSS Unity reached space at about 9:30 a.m. local time in New Mexico, carrying six people on board, including researchers from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy.
Italian Air Force officers unfurled their country’s flag and enjoyed several minutes of weightlessness at an altitude of 85.1 kilometers above sea level. Fifty miles is considered by NASA and the US Air Force to be the limit of space, although the internationally recognized limit, known as the Karman Line, is 62 miles high.
Who was all on the space plane VSS Unity
Col. Walter Villadei and Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi of the Italian Air Force flew 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 space plane and two on the carrier plane.
Suborbital space tourism competition
Richard Branson’s company has flown employees on several previous test missions, but the latest launch was the first with passengers holding airline tickets. The first commercial flight came two years after Branson flew a test flight that was supposed to usher in a new era of lucrative space tourism as it competes with billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company, Blue Origin, in the “suborbital” space tourism sector. However, Bezos said that Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket exceeds the Karman line, unlike the Virgin Galatic space plane.
What’s next
Virgin Galactic suffered a major setback in its commercial space flight program when a space plane on a test mission broke up in mid-air, killing the co-pilot and seriously injuring the pilot. The company has 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 buy seats. Since then, the company has sold an additional 200 tickets for $450,000. He is now planning his next space mission, Galactic 02, for August and hopes to be followed by lunar spacewalks.
