Virgin Galactic has successfully completed its third space flight. Yesterday, May 23, the founder of the Virgin Group, British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, announced that the VSS Unity rocket plane successfully climbed to an altitude of 55.45 miles (89 km), reaching the edge of space.
The Unity rocket plane was flown by two pilots — former NASA astronaut CJ Stercow and Virgin Galactic senior test pilot Dave McKay. The rocket plane rose to an altitude of 13 km with the help of the VMS Eve carrier aircraft, and after undocking independently reached the border with space and glided to earth.
Record-breaking flight of the VSS Unity spaceplane
This flight was the first of three planned to complete the testing phase. During the second flight, some employees of the Virgin corporation will ascend into space, and the flight of Richard Branson himself will complete the test cycle. After that, Virgin Galactic plans to start commercial flights. It is known that the first flight was paid for by the BBC of Italy, which intended to send a group of specialists into space to conduct several experiments with microgravity. In total, about 600 customers have already paid for flights to space.
The VSS Unity flight is also significant for Virgin Galactic because it took place from the private spaceport "America" in New Mexico, specially built for commercial launches. The certification of the rocket planes of the SpaceShip project, to which Unity belongs, should be completed by the end of this year, after which Branson's company will receive permission for commercial flights.