The Galactic 04 flight of the suborbital spaceplane SpaceShipTwo Unity took place on 6 October 2023. The flight was dubbed Galactic 04. Carrier aircraft VMS Eve took off from Spaceport America in New Mexico, USA, at 1528 GMT on 6 October 2023 with SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity slung underneath. . This was the fourth fully commercial mission for StarShipTwo. After a clime to 44,341 feet the Unity was dropped with ignition of the SpaceShipTwo rocket motor being confirmed a few seconds later at 1610 GMT. The space plane made a Mach 2.95 ascent and coasted to a maximum altitude of 87.4 km.
Trevor Beattie is wowed by the view on his Galactic 04 rocketplane flight. Courtesy: Trevor Beattie
It carried three participant astronauts in addition to the three crew. The crew were Kelly Latimer and C J Sturckow and Beth Moses (astronaut trainer) with the participants: UK advertising guru Trevor Beattie, Pakistani founder of the SpaceTrust Namira Salim of Pakistan, and US astronomy education specialist Ron Rosano. All were safely recovered to the airstrip at Spaceport America with a landing at 1624 GMT.
Ready to launch: ‘Eve” prepares to drop ‘Unity’ on flight Galactic 04. Courtesy: Spaceport America
Nicola Pecile and Jameel Janjua were at the controls of VMS Eve during the mission. It also landed back at Spaceport America.
Update on 20 October: Galactic 05 is set to be the next Virgin Galactic flight in November. It will be a commercial research flight. Its participants include Alan Stern Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI), flying a precursor mission to flights sponsored by NASA’s Flight Opportunities programme, will conduct biomedical research and using a mock up camera. Kellie Gerard of the international Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS) testing a biomedical monitor and performing a fluid dynamics experiment. .A third traveller has yet to be identified. The commander of the flight will be Mike Masucci, the commander pilot, with Kelly Latimer as co-pilot. Colin Bennett is the in-flight astronaut instructor. While that flight will have an astronaut instructor as “cabin crew”, the Galactic 06 flight after that, to take place next year, will dispense with this, allowing four travellers to be carried.
Comment by David Todd: Actually, Virgin Galactic has got this wrong. While I don’t think that these short suborbital flights need two pilots – in fact it was the co-pilot who made the mistake on the fatal accident – the cabin crew instructor is definitely needed for safety. Thus, instead of four cabin passenger rides, perhaps the spare seat upfront could be offered as a different kind of ticket. They might even ask for a premium. I am guessing that there would be plenty of takers for this including those who might want a second go…probably starting with Trevor Beattie.
