Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic officially started its commercial spaceflight operations Thursday morning with the launch of a crew on a suborbital scientific research mission dubbed Galactic 01.
The flight comes roughly a month after its last test flight soared to the edge of space and safely returned to New Mexico in late May and is expected to take roughly 1.5 hours.
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Thursday’s launch has been in the works for a long time. Upgrades and other factors led to delays in the company’s commercial efforts in the past.
The most recent test flight to have occurred other than May’s was one in July two years ago that flew billionaire Branson and several others. Virgin Galactic briefly faced a Federal Aviation Administration inquiry and grounding in connection to an airspace deviation in the July 2021 flight’s return to Earth, later getting cleared by the agency after making some changes, FOX Business previously reported.
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Galactic 01’s crew includes Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei and Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi, National Research Council of Italy engineer Pantaleone Carlucci and Virgin Galactic Astronaut Instructor Colin Bennett. Pilots involved in the mission are Mike Masucci, Nicola Pecile, Kelly Latimer and Jameel Janjua.
The Italian crew members will “conduct a series of suborbital science experiments,” Virgin Galactic previously announced.
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The company, which competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, has identified later in 2023 as when it is targeting beginning regular spaceflights. That will happen after another private astronaut mission, Galactic 02, set for early August.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.