Virgin Galactic completed fifth successful human spaceflight in five months

Virgin Galactic today announced the completion of its fifth successful human space mission in five months, ‘Galactic 04.’

Virgin Galactic

Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, said: “Our teams in New Mexico and California have delivered on our monthly spaceflight objectives. Three new astronauts journeyed to space today and brought back incredible memories and stories of their experience above the Earth.  These early missions with our initial ship, VSS Unity, have informed and confirmed the design and maintenance objectives for our Delta class spaceships, and the production tooling for those ships is on track to commence later in the 4th quarter”.

Onboard ‘Galactic 04’:

• Astronaut 017 Ron Rosano from the United States of America

• Astronaut 018 Trevor Beattie from the United Kingdom

• Astronaut 019 Namira Salim from Pakistan, marking the first person to fly to space from that country. Salim is also a resident of the United Arab Emirates and of Monaco.

Virgin Galactic

VSS Unity was piloted by Commander Kelly Latimer and Pilot CJ Sturckow, with Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses on board. VMS Eve was piloted by Commander Nicola Pecile and Pilot Jameel Janjua.

‘Galactic 04’ in-flight facts: 

• Take-off Time 10:23am MT

• Altitude at Release 44,341ft

• Apogee 54.3 miles

• Top Speed Mach 2.95 

• Landing Time 9:28am MT

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic will now proceed with post-flight inspections and analysis in preparation for the next commercial space mission, ‘Galactic 05’. Head to Virgin Galactic to learn more.