Celebrating the Success of Virgin Galactic’s First Commercial Spaceflight: Galactic 01

Celebrating the Success of Virgin Galactic’s First Commercial Spaceflight: Galactic 01

Galactic 01—Virgin Galactic’s first commercial suborbital spaceflight—was launched from Spaceport America, New Mexico, on June 29, 2023, with VSS Unity being released from VMS Eve at 11:29am ET. VSS Unity, the second SpaceShipTwo, transported a full crew of two pilots, Michael Masucci (Commander) and Nicola Pecile (Pilot) and four mission specialists in the cabin: Col. Walter Villadei and Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi from the Italian Air Force, Pantaleone Carlucci (Engineer, National Research Council of Italy - CNR), Colin Bennett (Astronaut Instructor, Virgin Galactic). VMS Eve was piloted by Kelly Latimer (Commander) and Jameel Janjua (Pilot)

The Galactic 01 mission was a research flight for the Italian Air Force and Italy’s National Research Council. Virgin Galactic and the Italian Air Force signed the contract for the flight in October 2019, agreeing to fly three Italian payload specialists on a dedicated research flight.

Credit: Illustration, images & video footage courtesy of Virgin Galactic

Acknowledgement: SciNews

Duration: 8 minutes

Release Date: June 29, 2023

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