Virgin Galactic Unity 25 spaceflight: Final commercial service test

Virgo galaxy It launched its first spaceflight in nearly two years Thursday, a major final test for the space tourism company before it begins carrying commercial passengers.

“We’ve reached space!” Virgin Galactic tweeted, adding about 11 minutes later that the spacecraft made a soft landing.

However, Virgin Galactic stock fell about 8% on Thursday, closing at $4.05 a share.

The mission, called Unit 25, marks the company’s fifth spaceflight to date. It launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico and marks the “final evaluation” flight, with six Virgin Galactic employees on board for the short flight to the edge of space.

Virgin Galactic did not publicly broadcast the flight unlike a previous flight that carried founder Sir Richard Branson in July 2021. Instead, the company provided updates on Unity 25’s progress on social media, where a third-party webcast tracked the launch.

The VMS Eve carrier aircraft took off at about 11:15 a.m. ET, carrying the company’s VSS Unity vehicle at an altitude of about 40,000 feet. VMS Eve launched the rocket-powered vehicle shortly after noon ET for VSS Unity to fire off its engine and climb 80 kilometers (or about 262,000 feet) — an altitude that the United States recognizes as the frontier of space. He eventually reached about 286,176 feet.

Known as suborbital, this type of spaceflight gives passengers a few minutes of weightlessness, unlike the longer, more difficult and more expensive private orbital flights conducted by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Virgin Galactic previously said it aimed to fly its first commercial mission in “late June,” assuming a successful test flight on Thursday.

VSS Unity was piloted by Virgin Galactic’s Mike Masushi and CJ Sturckow, while the VMS Eve carrier aircraft was flown by Jamil Janjua and Nicola Bissell. Members of the unit’s cabin crew included Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, Astronaut Instructor Luke Mace, Senior Engineering Manager Christopher Hoy, and Director of Internal Communications Jamila Gilbert.

“New Mexico, you’re more magical than space,” Gilbert said, referring to the state’s motto, the Land of Enchantment. “I flew into space just an hour away from the street I grew up on. It’s hard to put into words what an experience that was, but I’m sure I’ll spend the rest of my life trying. I’m not only honored to be one of the first 100 women and one of the 16 Hispanics and Latinos are going into space, and I’m also incredibly proud to represent the community from where the new space age is thriving.”

Unity 25 marks a defining moment in the history of Virgin Galactic, which has suffered repeated setbacks and years of delays in developing its own spaceflight system.

Branson’s spaceflight in 2021 follows nearly 17 years in the making — and more than $1 billion in investment. Prior to that, spacecraft development had seen several disasters, including a rocket engine explosion on Earth in 2007 that killed three employees of Virgin Galactic contractor Scaled Composites, as well as the crash of the first SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise, in 2014 that killed a Scaled assistant. Pilot Michael Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold during a test flight of the Virgin Galactic-owned spacecraft.

After Branson’s spaceflight, Virgin Galactic halted operations for a longer-than-expected renovation period while the company worked on its spacecraft and carrier aircraft, after A federal investigation into an unfortunate incident during his flight. The renovation process was to take about eight to ten months, but in the end it took about 16 months.