During the last day Virgin Galactic has successfully completed its fifth and final test flight in suborbital spacepaving the way for a possible start of commercial operations as early as next June. And apparently the next mission will feature a totally Italian crew.
There Unity 25 mission marked Virgin Galactic’s return to space following its last flight in July 2021, when Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and other passengers were sent nearly 100km into the air, anticipating a similar operation by Jeff Bezos and his space company, Blue Origin.
The Unity 25 mission began at 5:15 pm local time when the VMS Eve aircraft took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico with the Unity spacecraft anchored between the two fuselages. A total of eight people were on board the two vehicles, all Virgin Galactic employees. VMS Eve pilots were Jameel Janjua and Nicola Pecile, while Mike Masucci and CJ Sturckow piloted VSS Unity. In the cockpit of Unity were Beth Moses, the company’s chief astronaut instructor, Luke Mays, and mission specialists Christopher Huie and Jamila Gilbert.
We very rarely remember how the experience offered by Virgin Galactic works.
The procedure provides for the transport of the VSS Unity spacecraft at altitude by the VMS Eve aircraft. Once the 15 km height is reached, one of the most delicate sequences will take place, the release of the spacecraft. The Unity will start its engines and complete the last part of the climb reaching just under 100km in altitude. At that point the crew will be able to experience a few minutes in microgravity conditions and then begin the return-to-Earth maneuver. This phase will also be rather delicate and a tested slowdown system called “feather” will come into play, where two adjustable aerodynamic fins will help the pilots to maintain the orientation and stability of the aircraft in the last phase of the re-entry process. And then there will be the landing, identical in all respects to that of a classic aircraft.
After undocking thehe Unity spacecraft has reached a maximum speed of 2.94 Mach, or almost three times the speed of soundand rose to a maximum altitude of 87.2 kilometers. In this regard, we recall that according to NASA and the US Air Force, only above 80 km in height can a flight be considered space, however not everyone thinks so. The border between sky and space is often represented by the Karman line, an imaginary border located 100 km high.
Unity then returned to Earth at 18:37 landing on the runway at Spaceport America, closely followed by the VMS Eve aircraft.
And we close with a little curiosity, namely that the first commercial mission was booked by the Italian Air Force, therefore we will follow the event with particular interest as soon as there are further details on the timing. While waiting to find out more, we leave you with the Unity 25 mission recap.
VIDEO RECAP
