Virgin Galactic has returned the Unity spacecraft to the edge of space, two months after its inaugural flight, and this time it carried a test passenger.
Beth Moses, the spaceflight firm鈥檚 chief astronaut instructor, joined pilots Mike Masucci and Dave Mackay on the flight. 鈥淪he will provide human validation for the data we collect. Including aspects of the customer cabin and spaceflight environment from the perspective of people in the back,鈥� said Virgin Galactic . The previous test flight in December was crewed by only pilots.
On this flight, the space plane went three times the speed of sound and reached 89.9 kilometres above Earth at its highest point. The Karman line 鈥� the point at which Earth鈥檚 atmosphere ends and space begins 鈥� is about 100 kilometres above the ground, though the US Air Force defines astronauts as people who have travelled beyond the 80 kilometre mark.
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Unity is officially called SpaceShipTwo, a space plane that is launched on the underbelly of a larger aircraft.
SpaceShipTwo, welcome back to space
鈥� Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic)
Once in the upper atmosphere, SpaceShipTwo took over with its own rocket engines to boost into space. Fifteen minutes later, it landed back at California鈥檚 Mojave Air & Space Port.
Richard Branson, the founder of the company, has said that he hopes to fly to space aboard a Virgin Galactic spacecraft in the coming months, and that the company plans to take paying civilian passengers to space in the coming years.
