Virgin Galactic Unity 21 was a

sub-orbital spaceflight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...

of the

SpaceShipTwo The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo is car ...

-class VSS ''Unity'' which took place on 22 May 2021, piloted by David Mackay and co-piloted by

Frederick Sturckow Frederick Wilford Sturckow (born August 11, 1961) is an engineer, retired United States Marine Corps officer, former NASA astronaut, and commercial spacecraft pilot. Sturckow is a veteran of four Space Shuttle missions. He flew on STS-88 and STS-1 ...

. It was the first human spaceflight from the state of

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

. It was operated 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 ...

, a private company led by

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 ...

which intends to conduct

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

flights in the future. Unity 21 was the first human spaceflight to be launched 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 ...

. Reaching an apogee of , the flight satisfied the United States definition of spaceflight (), but fell short of the

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 ...

(), the

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The (; FAI; en, World Air Sports Federation) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintai ...

definition.

Crew

Flights are currently only by U.S Convention.

Flight

On 22 May 2021, ''Unity's''

mother ship A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritime ship, aircraft, or spacecraft. Examples include bombers converted to carry experimental airc ...

VMS ''Eve'' carried it into flight in a parasite configuration. At 15:26 UTC, ''Unity'' was drop launched. Pilots MacKay and Sturckow flew ''Unity'' at a maximum Mach of 3. to a maximum altitude of over . This altitude surpassed the 50-mile limit used in the United States to denote the limit of space, but fell short of the

. Both craft landed safely afterwards.

References

{{Virgin Galactic 2021 in spaceflight SpaceShipTwo Test spaceflights Aviation history of the United States Suborbital human spaceflights 2021 in New Mexico 2021 in aviation May 2021 events in the United States