Virgin Galactic ''Unity'' 25 was a sub-orbital spaceflight by

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company i ...

that took place on 25 May 2023. The flight used their SpaceShipTwo 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 a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

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, ''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. 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 is used to lift the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft to release altitude. It was developed by Scaled Composites from 2007 to 2010 as the first stage of Tier 1b, a two- ...

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. With V ...

in New Mexico, and carried VSS ''Unity'' in a parasite configuration before releasing it. From there, the spaceplane ignited its rocket engine 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 an attempt to define a boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space, and offers a specific definition set by the Fédération aéronautique internationale (FAI), an international record-keeping ...

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 events in the United States SpaceShipTwo Suborbital human spaceflights Private space missions Las Cruces, New Mexico