Virgin Galactic Inc. launched its first commercial spaceflight, dubbed Galactic 01, from New Mexico on Thursday. The spaceship VSS Unity is currently climbing to release altitude, the company noted.
Virgin Galactic's first paying customers that are flying to the edge of space are Colonel Walter Villadei and Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Landolfi, researchers from the Italian Air Force, and engineer Pantaleone Carlucci from Italy's National Research Council, as well as Virgin Galactic astronaut instructor Colin Bennet. The flight is set to last 90 minutes, during which the crew of the VSS Unity will conduct a series of suborbital experiments.
"This historic mission is Virgin Galactic's first commercial spaceflight and represents a new era in government-funded commercial human-tended research missions," Virgin Galactic said in its announcement of the spaceflight.
