(Washington) Space tourism company Virgin Galactic made its final flight Saturday before a two-year pause in commercial operations to develop a new class of more profitable spacecraft.
“Galactic 07 is back on dry land, now with astronauts. Our pilots, passengers and ship landed safely at Spaceport America, New Mexico,” Virgin Galactic posted on X, minutes after landing at 9:41 a.m. local time (11:41 a.m. Eastern ).
The carrier plane took off from this state in the southwest of the United States at 8:31 a.m. local time from a conventional runway then, after a period of ascent of approximately 50 minutes to an altitude of 13,582 meters, he released the ship hanging beneath him, called VSS Unity.
It, carrying two pilots and four passengers, then ignited its engine and accelerated vertically until reaching an apogee of almost 88 km altitude – just above the 80 km marking the beginning of space, as defined by the US Army.
After a few minutes allowing passengers to float weightlessly and observe the curvature of the Earth, it returned to land by gliding on the same runway. It reached a maximum speed of Mach 296, almost three times that of sound.
Only the name of one passenger had been revealed beforehand: the Turk Tuva Atasever, commissioned by the American company Axiom Space to carry out several scientific experiments.
According to a press release from Virgin Galactic, he notably wore sensors to recover brain data and he took two adrenaline pens for observations in microgravity.
The ship also carried experiments from the American universities Purdue and Berkeley.
Virgin Galactic, founded in 2004 by British billionaire Richard Branson, only specified that two passengers came from the United States and the fourth from Italy.
Up to 125 flights per year
Once the mission was completed, the mystery was lifted from these three passengers, all men.
According to the space company’s website, Andy Sadhwani is a propulsion engineer at SpaceX, having worked for NASA. Irving Izchak Pergament is a real estate developer and airplane pilot while Giorgio Manenti is an investment advisor in the hotel and restaurant industry.
This spaceflight was the company’s second in 2024 and the 12e in total.
A year ago, after years of development, Virgin Galactic took its first customers into space during the Galactic 01 mission.
Michel Colglazier, boss of Virgin Galactic, announced before the flight that this seventh commercial mission would be the ship’s last VSS Unity.
This is “a turning point for the company as we fully dedicate our resources to the production of our next-generation Delta spacecraft, which are scheduled to enter commercial service in 2026,” he said. he adds.
These vessels must be capable of carrying six passengers instead of four to VSS Unity, according to Virgin Galactic, which plans to build two initially. The company then plans up to 125 flights per year.
Test flights are planned for 2025.
Virgin Galactic announced at the end of 2023 the layoffs of 185 employees, or 18% of staff, in order to reduce costs and focus on the Delta program.
Some analysts were skeptical.
Investors can “expect to hold stocks that generate virtually no income for the next 18 to 30 months – if all goes according to plan and the Delta program is not delayed,” the company said. advice from The Motley Fool.
Virgin Galactic competes in this niche of short suborbital flights with the company Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos.