WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic plans to conduct its first fully industrial flight of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane on June 29, carrying three Italians who will conduct greater than a dozen experiments.
Virgin Galactic announced June 26 the date for its “Galactic 01” mission, flying from Spaceport America in Recent Mexico. The corporate had previously disclosed a window of June 27 to 30 for the flight.
The flight is taken into account the primary fully industrial mission by Virgin Galactic, although the corporate did generate small amounts of revenue by flying research payloads on earlier test flights.
“Galactic 01 is our first industrial spaceflight and we’re honored to have been chosen by the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council to support their first space research mission,” Michael Colglazier, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, said in a press release. “Virgin Galactic’s research missions will usher in a brand new era of repeatable and reliable access to space for presidency and research institutions for years to come back.”
The June 29 flight, called Virtute 1 by the Italian government, features three Italian payload specialists, commanded by Walter Villadei, a colonel within the Italian Air Force. He previously trained with NASA and Axiom Space for a industrial orbital spaceflight, becoming the backup pilot for the Ax-2 mission to the International Space Station that flew in May.
Joining Villadei are Angelo Landolfi, an Italian Air Force lieutenant colonel and physician, and Pantaleone Carlucci, a researcher with Italy’s National Research Council. The three will perform 13 experiments before, during and after the flight, measuring cosmic radiation, testing the consequences of microgravity on fluids and combustion, and collecting medical data. Villadei will wear a “smart flight suit” that may gather biomedical data while testing a suit design intended to operate at as much as 6 Gs.
“We’re flying payloads from multiple disciplines in a single mission and are utilizing the whole flight profile to gather invaluable data,” Villadei said in a press release.
Joining the Italians within the crew cabin is Colin Bennett, a Virgin Galactic astronaut instructor who will assess the research flight experience. He flew on the SpaceShipTwo mission in July 2021 that carried company founder Richard Branson. The general mission might be commanded by Virgin Galactic’s Mike Masucci, making his fourth flight. Nicola Pecile, a former Italian Air Force pilot who now works for Virgin, might be the pilot.
Virgin Galactic signed a contract with the Italian Air Force for the mission in October 2019, intending on the time to fly it as soon as late 2020 or early 2021. After Branson’s flight, Virgin Galactic planned to conduct the flight in the autumn of 2021 before starting a maintenance period for each SpaceShipTwo and its mothership aircraft, VMS Eve. Nonetheless, the corporate postponed the flight in October 2021, electing to perform the upkeep first.
Virgin resumed flights of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VMS Unity, earlier this yr. That included a May 25 suborbital test flight that was the primary time Unity went to space since Branson’s flight. That flight carried Virgin Galactic employees as payload specialists.
The corporate sees the flight as a solution to highlight its ability to perform research instead market to space tourism. “This flight will showcase our distinctive spaceflight system, which allows researchers to fly with their experiments, and our capability to supply regular access to space for the science and technology community,” said Sirisha Bandla, vp of presidency affairs and research operations at Virgin Galactic, in a press release.
The majority of Virgin Galactic’s business, though, will come from private astronauts paying as much as $450,000 a ticket for the flight. The corporate has about 800 customers for those flights. Virgin said June 15 its first flight carrying private astronauts, Galactic 02, is tentatively scheduled for early August, with subsequent flights planned on a monthly basis.
Fundraising
A lot of those customers may find yourself flying on the corporate’s future Delta class of spaceplanes, designed for much higher flight rates. With the corporate’s negligible revenue up to now and high operating losses, Virgin Galactic might want to raise substantial funding to develop the Delta-class vehicles.
In a June 22 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Virgin Galactic said it had accomplished a sale of $300 million of stock it announced in August 2022. It also announced plans to sell an extra $400 million of stock, working with Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
The funds, Virgin stated, might be used “for development of its spaceship fleet and infrastructure to scale its industrial operations, and for general corporate purposes.”
Shares in Virgin Galactic, traded on the Recent York Stock Exchange, fell 18.4% June 23, effectively giving up gains because the company announced its industrial spaceflight plans June 15.