WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic announced June 15 that it plans to conduct the primary business flight of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle in late June on a mission for the Italian Air Force.
Virgin said its “Galactic 01” mission will happen between June 27 and June 30 from Spaceport America in Recent Mexico. That can carry three people from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy under a contract Virgin Galactic signed with the Italian Air Force in 2019. The three will conduct microgravity research on the flight.
That shall be followed by Galactic 02 in early August. It is going to be the primary to hold individuals who signed up for space tourism flights with the corporate, paying as much as $450,000 per seat. Virgin Galactic says it’s going to conduct SpaceShipTwo flights on a monthly basis thereafter.
The upcoming business flights come after the corporate performed the Unity 25 test flight May 25, the primary powered flight of the vehicle in nearly two years. Two pilots and 4 company mission specialists were on the vehicle, named VSS Unity, going to a peak altitude of 87.2 kilometers before landing back at Spaceport America.
The corporate said before the Unity 25 flight it was targeting late June for Galactic 01 assuming the test flight went as expected. The corporate didn’t release details concerning the performance of SpaceShipTwo on Unity 25, but noted in a press release that they approved plans for Galactic 01 after “routine evaluation and vehicle inspections.”
Virgin Galactic didn’t disclose who would fly VSS Unity or its mothership aircraft, VMS Eve, on either Galactic 01 or Galactic 02, nor who were the Italian researchers or private astronauts assigned to those flights. The corporate said that crew assignments can be announced upfront of every mission but was no more specific.
The corporate also didn’t state if the flights can be webcast. The Unity 25 flight was not broadcast live by the corporate, which as an alternative provided a handful of social media updates. In contrast, the previous powered flight in July 2021, which flew company founder Richard Branson and other Virgin Galactic employees, was webcast, with media and guests invited to the spaceport as well. Blue Origin has also webcast all of its Recent Shepard suborbital flights that carried people, in addition to many uncrewed flights.