Virgin Galactic aces final test spaceflight, eyes start of commercial service in June.

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Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity snapped this selfie during its fifth crewed spaceflight, which occurred on May 25, 2023. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic via Twitter)
 

Virgin Galactic aced its fifth test flight to suborbital space yesterday morning (May 25), likely keeping the company on track to start commercial operations next month.

 

Known as Unity 25, was Virgin Galactic's first trip to the final frontier since July 2021, when it sent up billionaire Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and several other passengers. But don't expect such a long gap between Unity 25 and the company's next spaceflight.

"We think if all this goes well, we'll be ready to fly our first commercial flight in June," Mike Moses, president of spaceline missions and safety at Virgin Galactic, told Space.com in a preflight call in May 24.
 

Success on spaceflight number 5

 

Virgin Galactic employs an air-launch system to take people and research payloads to suborbital space. That system currently consists of two operational vehicles: a two-pilot, six-passenger space plane named VSS Unity and a carrier aircraft known as VMS Eve.

 

Unity lifts off from a runway, carried aloft beneath Eve's wings. When Eve reaches an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters), it drops Unity, which then fires up its onboard rocket motor to zoom up to suborbital space.

 

Passengers aboard Unity get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space before gliding back home for a runway landing.
 

 

 

 

Unity has now made this trip five times. ("Unity 25" refers to the total number of test flights the space plane has performed, which include captive-carry and glide flights in Earth's atmosphere.)

 

The mission began at 11:15 a.m. EDT (1515 GMT), when Eve lifted off from Spaceport America in New Mexico with Unity anchored to a pylon between the carrier craft's twin fuselages.

 

A total of eight people went up in the two vehicles, all of them Virgin Galactic employees. Jameel Janjua and Nicola Pecile flew VMS Eve, and Mike Masucci and C.J. Sturckow piloted VSS Unity. Riding in the space plane's cabin were Beth Moses, the company's chief astronaut instructor (and Mike Moses' wife), astronaut instructor Luke Mays, and mission specialists Christopher Huie and Jamila Gilbert. Unity 25 marked the third spaceflight for Beth Moses and the first for her three fellow crewmates.
 

After being released, Unity reached a maximum speed of Mach 2.94 (nearly three times the speed of sound) and a peak altitude of 54.2 miles (87.2 kilometers), Virgin Galactic representatives said in a statement issued shortly after the flight.

 

That's high enough to be considered a spaceflight, according to NASA and the U.S. Air Force, which award astronaut wings to anyone who gets above 50 miles (80 km). Some other authorities, however, regard outer space to begin at an altitude of 62 miles (100 km).

 

Unity came back to Earth at 12:37 p.m. EDT (1637 GMT), touching down on a runway at Spaceport America. Eve followed a few minutes later, officially bringing an end to the Unity 25 mission.