Virgin Galactic’s next crewed flight will blast to the sting of space later this month

Virgin Galactic is gearing up for its first crewed flight in nearly two years. The space tourism company announced that it’ll launch its Unity 25 crew into space later this month but didn’t provide a particular date.

The upcoming spaceflight is “the ultimate assessment of the total spaceflight system and astronaut experience” ahead of Virgin Galactic’s first industrial flight that’s planned for the tip of June. Unity 25 marks the corporate’s fifth spaceflight and can launch 4 Virgin Galactic employees — Beth Moses, Luke Mays, Jamila Gilbert, and Christopher Huie — to the sting of space.

As is the case with Virgin Galactic’s other spaceflights, this launch will involve the usage of two vehicles: the VSS Unity and the VMS Eve. While the VSS Unity is the rocket-powered spaceplane that houses Virgin Galactic’s passengers, the VMS Eve is the mothership that carries Unity into space. When the 2 reach around 50,000 feet of altitude, Eve drops Unity before the spaceplane blasts its solution to suborbital space, allowing passengers to experience just a few moments of weightlessness as they gaze upon Earth from far above.