19.07.2023
Virgin Galactic to launch 2nd commercial spaceflight on Aug. 10
'Galactic 02' will be the company's first private astronaut mission.
Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity space plane soars high above Earth on its first commercial spaceflight on June 29, 2023. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)
Virgin Galactic will launch six people to suborbital space next month on the company's first private astronaut mission.
The flight, known as Galactic 02, is scheduled to lift off from New Mexico's Spaceport America on Aug. 10. It will be the company's second commercial spaceflight, following a June 29 mission for the Italian Air Force and the nation's National Research Council (which were government, not private, customers).
Galactic 02 will break new ground, becoming the first mission to loft a former Olympian and people from the Caribbean, according to Virgin Galactic. The crew also includes a mother-daughter duo, another spaceflight first.
"The dynamic and multinational crew highlights the role the commercial space industry can play in removing barriers that once existed to becoming an astronaut," the company wrote in an update today (July 17) that announced the Galactic 02 crew.
The former Olympian is 80-year-old British adventurer Jon Goodwin, who competed in canoeing in the 1972 Summer Games in Munich. Goodwin has Parkinson's and will become just the second person diagnosed with the disease to reach space, Virgin Galactic said.
"When I was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2014, I was determined not to let it stand in the way of living life to the fullest," Goodwin said in today's update. "And now for me to go to space with Parkinson's is completely magical. I hope this inspires all others facing adversity and shows them that challenges don't have to inhibit or stop them from pursuing their dreams."
The mother and daughter are Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers, who hail from the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda. They won their seats in a 2021 sweepstakes organized by Virgin Galactic and charity fundraising platform Omaze. (The money raised went to the nonprofit Space for Humanity.)
"When I was two years old, just looking up to the skies, I thought, 'How can I get there?' But, being from the Caribbean, I didn't see how something like this would be possible," Schahaff said in today's update. "The fact that I am here, the first to travel to space from Antigua, shows that space really is becoming more accessible."
Mayers, 18, will become the second-youngest person to reach space, according to Virgin Galactic. The youngest was Oliver Daemen, who was also 18 when he flew on Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle in July 2021.
Three other people will fly to space on Galactic 02, all of them Virgin Galactic employees.
The company's chief astronaut instructor, Beth Moses, will be in the cabin of the VSS Unity space plane along with Goodwin, Schahaff and Mayers. C.J. Sturckow and Kelly Latimer will be at the vehicle's controls, as commander and pilot, respectively.
Unity lifts off beneath the wing of a carrier plane called WhiteKnightTwo, which drops the spacecraft at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters). Unity then fires up its onboard rocket motor, makings its own way to suborbital space and treating passengers to a few minutes of weightlessness and great views of Earth.
On Galactic 02, Nicola Pecile will command WhiteKnightTwo and Mike Masucci will pilot it, Virgin Galactic said.
Quelle: SC
----
Update: 10.08.2023
.
Virgin Galactic: Mum, daughter and Brit, 80, count down to space flight
A rocket plane is due to fly from New Mexico carrying an 80-year-old British former Olympian, an Aberdeen student and her mother into space.
Anastatia Mayers and her mother Keisha Schahaff won the tickets to board the Virgin Galactic flight in a competition.
Jon Goodwin, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, will become the second person with Parkinson's disease to go to space.
The mission will be seen as another test of how viable space tourism is.
The launch window for the Virgin Galactic 02 flight opens at 08:30 local time (15:30 BST). It is Virgin Galactic's second commercial flight. The first was in June when the Italian Air Force and scientists conducted experiments in weightless conditions on a 70-minute mission.
The Unity rocket plane is carried on the first stage of its journey slung underneath a carrier jet, known as Eve. Unity will then aim to ignite its engine and travel to an altitude of 279,000ft (85km).
The advertised price for a place on a Virgin Galactic flight has been as high as $450,000 (£350,000). Mr Goodwin, who competed in the 1972 Olympics as a canoeist, paid $250,000 for his ticket in 2005 but had feared his diagnosis would mean he could not take part.
He said he wanted to prove that his condition - Parkinson's disease is a condition in which parts of the brain become progressively damaged - did not define him.
Around 100 people will watch him travel into space at a party in Stoke-on-Trent organised by Parkinson's UK.
Ms Schahaff, from Antigua, was flying to the UK to sort out her daughter's visa when she entered a competition to join the spaceflight.
She found out months later that she had won two spaceflight seats in the draw.
"Suddenly, who's walking into my yard? Richard Branson. The whole team just swarmed into my house saying 'you're the winner, you're going to space'," she said.
Her daughter Anastatia will become the second-youngest person to go to space, and says she hopes to inspire others.
"That would be very important to me, both in Scotland and Antigua and anywhere else I have any ties," she says.
"My intention is to just break any barriers that we set for ourselves or that the world sets for us."
The flight will aim to reach the edge of space, around 53 miles (85km) above Earth, where the passengers will have a few minutes to experience weightlessness.
The spaceship does not have the velocity to complete a full orbit of the globe.
Jon Goodwin is the first on a list of 800 or so individuals who have bought tickets for a ride on the Unity rocket.
Some of them have been waiting over a decade to get their chance, and most will have a long wait still.
US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the world's first ever space tourist in 2001, paying a reported $20m.
Recently, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin beat Virgin Galactic in the race to become the first company to take paying passengers into space.
Both companies say their missions further science as well as catering to the very rich, but space tourism has been criticised for its cost and environmental impact.
Quelle: BBC
+++
Virgin Galactic launches first tourism mission after decades of promises
Virgin Galactic — the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson — finally launched its first space tourists to the edge of the cosmos, a major step toward delivering on decades of promises.
The company’s rocket-powered space plane, VSS Unity, took off at 8:30 a.m. MT from a New Mexico spaceport attached to a massive twin-fuselage mothership.
It carried three customers: entrepreneur and health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Anastatia Mayers — the first space travelers from Antigua who won their seats in a fundraiser drawing — as well as former Olympian Jon Goodwin, who competed as a canoeist in the 1972 Munich Summer Games. Goodwin became the second person with Parkinson’s disease to travel to space.
The group’s journey began at Virgin Galactic’s spaceport in New Mexico, where the passengers boarded VSS Unity as it sat attached beneath the wing of the mothership called VMS Eve.
VMS Eve took off much like an airplane, barreling down a runway before ascending to more than 40,000 feet (12,192 meters). After reaching its designated altitude, VMS Eve released the VSS Unity, which then fired its rocket engine for about one minute as it swooped directly upward, sending it vaulting toward the stars.
Space tourists, from left, Jon Goodwin, Anastatia Mayers and her mother, Keisha Schahaff, are seen before boarding their Virgin Galactic flight at Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
The vehicle ventured more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, the altitude the US government considers the edge of outer space. (Internationally, the Kármán line, 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level, is often used to mark the boundary between our planet and space — but there’s a lot of gray area.)
The space plane reached supersonic speeds as it hurled upward. And at the peak of its flight, the vehicle spent a few minutes in weightlessness as it entered free fall and glided back to the spaceport for a runway landing at 9:30 a.m. MT. The journey lasted an hour.
Meet the crew
This mission came on the heels of the success of Virgin Galactic’s first commercial mission, which launched in June. That inaugural flight was a research-focused mission with Italian air force-funded passengers — rather than celebrities and wealthy thrill seekers similar to those flown by Virgin Galactic’s chief competitor, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. (Future Virgin Galactic flights, however, are expected to include high-profile customers.)
Thursday’s mission marked Virgin Galactic’s first to include tourists, or passengers flying for the experience rather than in a professional capacity.
Schahaff and her daughter Mayers won their seats in a drawing that raised $1.7 million in grants for Space for Humanity, a nonprofit focused on expanding access to space.
They were among the first from the Caribbean islands to travel to space; a Jamaican American and Virgin Galactic employee flew on a test mission in May.
“When I was two years old, just looking up to the skies, I thought, ‘How can I get there?’ But, being from the Caribbean, I didn’t see how something like this would be possible,” Schahaff said in a news releaselast month. “The fact that I am here, the first to travel to space from Antigua, shows that space really is becoming more accessible.”
Mayers, 18, is a second-year undergraduate studying philosophy and physics at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. She became the second-youngest person to travel to space, according to Virgin Galactic. (The current record belongs to Oliver Daemen, who was 18 when he accompanied Bezos on Blue Origin’s inaugural passenger flight in 2021.)
Goodwin was one of the earliest ticket holders on Virgin Galactic, which opened its first sales more than a decade ago.
Goodwin said he was determined not to let his 2014 Parkinson’s diagnosis stand in the way of joining a flight.
“And now for me to go to space with Parkinson’s is completely magical,” he said in a news release. “I hope this inspires all others facing adversity and shows them that challenges don’t have to inhibit or stop them from pursuing their dreams.”
Advocates have long made the case that space travel is uniquely suited for people with physical disabilities, as the weightless environment could prove easier to navigate and enhance mobility.
The European Space Agency recently enlisted John McFall, a Paralympic sprinter who lost a leg in a motorcycle accident when he was 19, to test that hypothesis further. McFall will participate in feasibility studies to pinpoint how to adapt space stations and other spacecraft to suit the needs of people with disabilities.
What’s next for space tourism
Carrying its first tourists is a massive milestone for Virgin Galactic, which was founded in 2004 and has long missed deadlines for delivering on promises to conduct frequent trips to the edge of space.
Now that it’s operational, the company can turn toward its lengthy backlog of customers who have signed up for a flight. Virgin Galactic has sold about 800 tickets, including 600 at prices up to $250,000 and another couple hundred at $450,000 per ticket.
During an August 4 call with investors, CEO Michael Colglazier called the company’s recent successes an “outstanding achievement.”
The passengers are seen inside VSS Unity during their flight.
“Galactic 02 is going to set the stage for a new era of suborbital human spaceflight that will dramatically broaden access to space for private individuals,” he said, using the name for Thursday’s mission.
In the lead-up to 2023, Virgin Galactic had been undergoing a lengthy “enhancement” process to upgrade its flight hardware. The work came after several missteps in earlier test flights.
The company plans to continue using its VSS Unity space plane and VMS Eve mothership until at least 2026, then debut an updated line of hardware referred to as “Delta ships.”
Those crafts are expected to cost less to produce and be capable of conducting more flights in less time, Colglazier added.
Quelle: CNN