Virgin Galactic
SPACEPORT USA, N.M.—Thursday morning, Virgin Galactic plans to send civilians into space for the first time.
Company’s VSS Unity The spacecraft is scheduled to be ejected from the aircraft shortly after 9:00 a.m. local time (15:00 UTC) before being rocketed to an altitude of more than 80 kilometers. The vehicle will carry two pilots (CJ Starkow and Kelly Latimer), company president Beth Moses and three private customers.
Civilian astronauts are an interesting combination. Among them was the company’s first paying customer, an 80-year-old man named John Goodwin, who represented Great Britain at the 1972 Munich Olympics as a canoeist. Joining him are Caribbean mother-daughter duo Keisha Shahav and Anastasia Meyers, whose tickets were purchased by the nonprofit Space for Humanity to expand access to space.
This will be Virgin Galactic’s seventh spaceflight and second commercial spaceflight. The first commercial flight on 25 May was carried by three Italian Air Force personnel.
The spacecraft is connected to a large carrier-based aircraft and takes off. VMS EveAnd it takes the vehicle nearly an hour to reach a descent altitude of 47,000 feet (just over 14 km). Approximately 10 minutes before the spacecraft is ejected, it switches to internal power.
how is the ride
This drop is not really a “drop” per se. Airplanes and spaceships have about the same mass, so Eve release unity Due to the rapid weight loss, it rises sharply. unityMeanwhile, it continues to fly almost horizontally.
After the plane empties unity Ignite the rocket engine and let it burn for about 60 seconds. His first ten seconds or so are accompanied by horizontal acceleration, after which the aircraft’s pilot tilts upward to a near-vertical position and flies straight through the upper atmosphere. Passengers experience about 3 G forces.
unity Passengers then coast to an altitude of 80-85 km while enjoying approximately 3 minutes of weightlessness before beginning the descent. During this phase of flight, there are no forces acting on the airframe, no spacecraft movement, and no noise. Floating freely over the world, looking down and up must be a truly magical moment.
The return to Earth takes about 15 minutes. unity which primarily functions as a glider, returns to the three-mile-long runway in southern New Mexico where the carrier plane took off just over an hour ago.
Beginning at 9:00 AM Mountain Time (15:00 UTC), Virgin Galactic will: host a live stream of flight. Als will accompany the mission and provide a full wrap-up afterward, as well as a detailed look at how the company ultimately plans to monetize the commercial space tourism industry.
