Virgin Galactic ''Unity'' 25 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 ...

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 ...

that took place on 25 May 2023. The flight used their

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 ...

spaceplane VSS ''Unity''. The crew consisted of six Virgin Galactic employees. ''Unity'' 25 was the first spaceflight for the company since ''Unity'' 22 in 2021, when founder

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 ...

flew to space.

Background

''Unity'' 25 was the first spaceflight for Virgin Galactic since Richard Branson flew to space in July 2021. The company had planned to fly a research flight for the

Italian Air Force The Italian Air Force (; AM, ) is the air force of the Italy, Italian Republic. The Italian Air Force was founded as an independent service arm on 28 March 1923 by Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, King Victor Emmanuel III as the ("Royal Air Force ...

, ''Unity'' 23, later that year, but the fleet was temporarily grounded following an error during Branson's flight, along with upgrades and modifications being made to the vehicles. Virgin Galactic plans to fly its first commercial flight in late June 2023, following ''Unity'' 25's success.

Crew

The crew of ''Unity'' 25 included two pilots and four passengers, all being employees at Virgin Galactic. Both pilots have flown SpaceShipTwo to space previously, and CJ Sturckow has flown to space on the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

. Of the four passengers, only Beth Moses had flown to space before.

Flight

The mission was Virgin Galactic's fifth spaceflight. VMS ''Eve'', a

WhiteKnightTwo The Scaled Composites Model 348 White Knight Two (WK2) is a quadjet cargo aircraft that was used to lift the SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spacecraft to release altitude. It was developed by Scaled Composites from 2007 to 2010 as the first stage of Tier 1b, ...

mothership, took off from

Spaceport America Spaceport America, formerly the Southwest Regional Spaceport, is an FAA-licensed spaceport located on of State Trust Land in the Jornada del Muerto desert basin north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and southeast of Truth or Consequences. Wit ...

in New Mexico, and carried VSS ''Unity'' in a parasite configuration before releasing it. From there, the spaceplane ignited its

rocket engine A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...

and flew to over in altitude, above the U.S. definition for the start of space, but below the FAI-defined

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 ( ...

at . It then reentered the atmosphere and landed on the same runway it took off from.

References

{{Virgin Galactic 2023 in spaceflight 2023 in New Mexico May 2023 in the United States SpaceShipTwo Suborbital human spaceflights Private space missions Las Cruces, New Mexico