Crew aboard Virgin Galactic space plane celebrates successful launch

This is when the crew aboard Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane celebrated with a punch during the company’s first commercial mission.

Italian researcher Walter Villadei and the company’s astronaut instructor Colin Bennett shared a celebratory moment inside the craft as it left Earth’s atmosphere and flew to the edge of space.

Founded by Richard Branson in 2004 and worth $1.31 billion, Virgin Galactic spent nearly a decade preparing for the mission that followed several years of developmental delays.

The “mothership,” an aircraft carrier named VMS Eve, and the spaceplane took off from Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America in New Mexico at 10:45 a.m. ET.

The rocket plane, SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity, reached speeds of Mach 3 within seconds of being released by Eve at 11:30 a.m. ET and blasted toward the edge of space.

Unity shut down as soon as it reached space, allowing the men to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and epic views of the final frontier.

The crew also held an Italian flag while hovering in the cabin.

The mission, dubbed Galactic 01, landed back on the New Mexico runway at 11:50 a.m.

Also on board for the epic journey were Pantaleone Carlucci and Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Landolfi.

Unlike Branson’s rivals, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, this flight was not crewed by wealthy individuals or celebrities shelling out hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for the experience.

The focus of the Galactic 01 mission was to test 13 zero-gravity experiments, which were collected biometric data, measured cognitive performance, and recorded how certain liquids and solids mix in microgravity conditions.

And the three Italian researchers did not pay for their seats.

Costs for future tickets were originally slated to be $250,000 each, though Virgin Galactic recently increased that price to $450,000.

Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin also use rockets to launch capsules into space, while Branson chose to take a different approach with airborne launches.

Once Virgin Galactic’s planes reach an altitude of about 14,000 feet, the mothership releases the spaceplane, which will then blast toward the final frontier.

The technique has been explored over decades of flight research, including the X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, and the X-15, the fastest piloted aircraft ever flown, reaching a top speed of 4,520 miles per hour during a 1967 flight.

And it reduces the need for massive amounts of fuel because the craft doesn’t use the rocket’s power to crawl through the dense lower atmosphere.

Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane was powered by two pilots while the four passengers sat in the cabin waiting for space.

For Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei, designated commander, the flight aboard the spaceplane was part of his astronaut training for a future mission to the International Space Station.

Joining him on Thursday are two Italian colleagues: Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Landolfi, a physician and flight surgeon, and Pantaleone Carlucci, a research board member who acts as a flight engineer and cargo specialist.

The crew was completed by their Virgin Galactic trainer, Colin Bennett, the company’s lead “astronaut instructor,” and Unity’s two pilots, Michael Masucci and Nicola Pecile.

One of the Italian researchers wore a special suit that measures biometrics and physiological responses, while another performed tests using sensors to track heart rate, brain function and other metrics in microgravity.

And the third studied how certain liquids and solids mix in that very weak gravity.

The gleaming white spaceplane is designed to detach from its twin-hulled mothership and then fall away as the pilots ignite the vehicle’s engine to send the rocketship into a near-vertical climb at about three times the speed of sound to the darkness of space.

At the height of the flight, the crew experienced a few minutes of weightlessness with the engine turned off before the craft switched to reentry mode and glided back to the spaceport for a landing on the runway.

The flight, from take-off to landing, took approximately 90 minutes.

Branson became the first billionaire in space when he made the maiden voyage of the VSS Unity on July 11, 2021.

The founder of Virgin Galactic was one of six Virgin Galactic employees aboard VSS Unity.

However, the spaceplane was grounded shortly after the flight due to an investigation when it went off course during its descent back to the runway in the New Mexico desert.

Branson became the first billionaire in space when he made the maiden voyage of the VSS Unity on July 11, 2021.

The founder of Virgin Galactic was one of six Virgin Galactic employees aboard VSS Unity.

However, the spaceplane was grounded shortly after the flight due to an investigation when it went off course during its descent back to the runway in the New Mexico desert.

In September 2021, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was investigating an anomaly in the flight’s descent.

The FAA, which oversees commercial air and spaceflight in the US, found that the spaceplane “deviated from air traffic control clearance” and did so for about a minute and 41 seconds.

Branson and his team have since solved the problem, sending a test crew of four employees 54.2 miles above the Earth’s surface as recently as May, paving the way for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial, Galactic 01.