WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic conducted its first suborbital mission of 2024 on Jan. 26 as the company prepares for the final flights of its current spaceplane.
The VSS Unity spaceplane, to which the mother ship VMS Eve was attached, took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico at 12 p.m. Eastern time. Unity separated about 45 minutes later and fired its hybrid rocket motor. According to the company, the vehicle reached a peak altitude of 88.8 kilometers before gliding back to the spaceport runway at 12:56 p.m. Eastern time
The flight, called Galactic 06 by Virgin Galactic, carried four passengers and two pilots for the first time. Previous commercial flights have carried three customers and a Virgin Galactic astronaut trainer on board.
As with some recent flights, Virgin Galactic did not reveal the identities of the four private astronauts until after the mission ended. They are the Americans Neil Kornswiet and Robie Vaughn, the Ukrainian-American Lina Borozdina and the Austrian Franz Haider. Unity was commanded by CJ Sturckow with Nicola Pecile as pilot.
Virgin Galactic also did not webcast the launch as it had done on some previous flights, instead providing updates on social media. These updates lagged significantly behind the timing of flight activity: the post on X (formerly Twitter) announcing the landing of Unity the end was released more than 35 minutes after landing.
“The success of Galactic 06 and the company's other commercial spaceflights in recent months only strengthens our confidence in the repeatability of our product and our ability to deliver a superlative experience for our customers,” said Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, in an opinion opinion.
The flight was the first since a special research flight, Galactic 05, on November 2nd. That flight was the sixth in less than six months for the vehicle, but Virgin Galactic said it would pause flights through January for an annual maintenance period.
However, just a week after Galactic 05, Virgin Galactic announced that it would soon suspend VSS Unity flights, citing the need to conserve its cash reserves for the development of its next-generation Delta class of suborbital vehicles. These future vehicles are expected to fly more frequently and at a lower cost than Unity.
Virgin Galactic said at the time that after Galactic 06, it would fly Unity on Galactic 07 again in the second quarter of the year and possibly a Galactic 08 mission in mid-2024. The company then plans to retire VSS Unity and shift its resources to developing Delta-class vehicles.
“With production of our next-generation Delta-class ships underway, we look forward to expanding our flight capacity, with testing expected to begin next year and commercial service in 2026,” Colglazier said in the Explanation.
The company confirmed in the statement that Galactic 07 will take place in the second quarter and will fly a researcher along with private astronauts. No further details about the flight were disclosed.
Related