On Thursday, Virgin Galactic launched its first commercial flight into space. The company's VMS Eve Spaceship Carrier took off from New Mexico’s Spaceport America in Truth or Consequences at about 8:30 a.m. carrying the VSS Unity Spacecraft. The Unity separated from the carrier at roughly 45,000 feet and flew its crew to nearly 59 miles above the earth.
The Unity carried three researchers from the Italian Air Force & National Research Council of Italy, Virgin Galactic’s lead astronaut instructor, and 13 research payloads. Walter Villadei, a Colonel for the Italian Airforce, said that the company’s program is beneficial for medium-length low-gravity experiments and training.
“The opportunities that the international community really has nowadays to fly in microgravity, you can either fly for a few seconds in parabolic flights between 20 and 30 seconds. Or you have to fly to the International Space Station for six months. There’s nothing in-between,” he said. “[This flight] was not only just to try the payloads that we developed with the National Research Council, but even to try how this new platform [that is] completely new can really support to provide us a kind of gap-filler.”
According to Virgin Galactic, The next commercial spaceflight for private astronauts is scheduled for August, with monthly flights to space planned moving forward. The Total cost to fly is $450,000 per person.
