There are only 48 hours left for the first commercial flight of Virgin Galactic to Earth orbit. Richard Branson’s company, founded in 2004, made a test trip with the same owner of the company as a crew member in July 2021 and now, almost two years later, they are taking real clients into space.
The Galactic 01 mission is scheduled for this Thursday, June 29, 2023. The launch will be at 09:00 MDT (11:00 am in Chile; 08:00 am in Mexico City).
This first mission, which is clearly commercial, is not pure tourism. The suborbital flight will be attended by members of the Italian Air Force and personnel from the Italian National Research Council. The idea is that these scientists record data to analyze microgravity.
If you want to see the launch live, you just have to enter the Virgin Galactic page and sign up for streaming via streaming.
Virgin Galactic space travel
The goal of providing commercial suborbital spaceflight. Its main spacecraft is called VSS Unity, formerly known as SpaceShipTwo. VSS stands for “Virgin Space Ship”. The design of the ship is based on the previous prototype called VSS Enterprise.
Virgin Galactic’s system is made up of two main elements: the spacecraft VSS Unity and the mothership VMS Eve (formerly known as WhiteKnightTwo). VMS stands for Virgin Mother Ship. The Eve mothership is designed to take VSS Unity to an altitude of approximately 15 kilometers (50,000 feet), where the Unity spacecraft detaches and fires its engine to continue its ascent into space.
The VSS Unity is powered by a hybrid engine that combines a solid rocket motor with a liquid rocket motor. During the flight, after separation from the mother ship, the VSS Unity ignites its engine to propel itself upward at supersonic speeds. Once the target altitude is reached, the engines are shut down and passengers can experience several minutes of weightlessness and take in the panoramic view of space before beginning the return to Earth.