VF-01 was a

sub-orbital spaceflight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the primary (astronomy), gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital ...

of the

SpaceShipTwo The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) was an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It was manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo was ...

-class VSS ''Unity'' that took place on 22 February 2019, piloted by David Mackay and co-piloted by Mike Masucci. It was operated by

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate, which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and opera ...

, a private company led by

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

that intends to conduct

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, ...

flights in the future. Following VSS ''Unity'' VP-03, VF-01 was a demonstration of the craft's ability to carry passengers. Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut trainer

Beth Moses Beth Moses is chief space flight participant instructor and interiors program manager for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo program, and a commercial astronaut, as classified by the Federal Aviation Administration. She was the first woman to make ...

acted as a test passenger, evaluating the experience for potential customers. Reaching an apogee of , the flight satisfied the United States definition of spaceflight (), but fell short of the

Kármán line The Kármán line (or von Kármán line ) is a conventional definition of the Outer space#Boundary, edge of space; it is widely but not universally accepted. The international record-keeping body Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, FAI ( ...

(), the

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...

definition. It was the highest flight of ''Unity'' and the SpaceShipTwo ever.

Crew

Flight

On 22 February 2019, ''Unity's''

mother ship A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritime ship, aircraft, or spacecraft. Examples include bomber aircraft, bombers converted to carry exp ...

VMS ''Eve'' carried it into flight in a parasite configuration. Shortly before 9 a.m., ''Unity'' was drop launched. Pilots Mackay and Masucci flew ''Unity'' at a maximum

Mach The Mach number (M or Ma), often only Mach, (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a Boundary (thermodynamic), boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Austrian physi ...

of 3.04 to a maximum altitude of over . This altitude surpassed the 50-mile limit used in the United States to denote the limit of space, but fell short of the

. Both craft landed safely afterwards. During flight, Moses unstrapped from her seat and experienced

weightlessness Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

. Per the U.S. convention, Moses was also the first woman aboard a commercial spacecraft.

References

{{Virgin Galactic 2019 in California 2019 in spaceflight 2019 in aviation SpaceShipTwo Test spaceflights Private space missions Aviation history of the United States History of the Mojave Desert region Mojave Air and Space Port Suborbital human spaceflights February 2019 in the United States