It would be an area virgin no more.
Virgin Galactic is about to launch its first-ever business spaceflight — which has a hefty $450,000 ticket price — later this month, the corporate announced.
A part of billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, the corporate will launch its debut mission, “Galactic 01,” sometime between June 27 and 30, depending on weather conditions.
A second launch, “Galactic 02,” has also been scheduled for August.
“Galactic 01, a scientific research mission, will carry three crew members from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy to conduct microgravity research,” Virgin Galactic representatives said in a press release.
“With scientific payloads on board, the spaceflight will showcase the worth and power of the unique suborbital science lab that Virgin Galactic offers,” they added.
Passengers shall be sent an astonishing 300,000 feet — greater than 55 miles — above Earth’s surface via a carrier plane, dubbed VMS Eve, and a six-passenger, two-pilot SpaceShipTwo space plane called VSS Unity, in response to Space.com.
After launch, Eve will propel passengers into the sky before it falls off at 50,000 feet. Unity will then use its own rockets to depart into sub-orbit at thrice the speed of sound.
Once in space, passengers are allowed to unbuckle and experience weightlessness for several minutes and absorb incredible views of Earth from one in all the spacecraft’s 17 windows.
The spacecraft will then glide back to the planet for an unpowered runway landing.
These missions will launch from Spaceport America in Recent Mexico — Virgin Galactic’s business hub.
The once-in-a-lifetime trip costs a whopping $450,000, with an initial deposit of $150,000 and a final deposit of $300,000.
There are already several hundred customers who’ve reserved a seat.
All passengers must fill out a medical questionnaire and complete last-minute checkups before the launch, the corporate said.
In its brochure for the flight, Virgin Galactic said passengers even have the choice to undergo weeks of coaching, which incorporates “weightlessness preparation, G-Force readiness, emergency procedures, sensory saturation and more.”
Unity has flown five test missions to this point, including its final launch in May.
The Virgin mission comes nearly two years after Branson edged out fellow billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his rocket company Blue Origin of their space race.
Virgin Galactic has been working for greater than a decade to send paying passengers on short space hops and in 2021 finally won the federal government’s approval.
The corporate said it plans to launch 400 flights per 12 months from Spaceport America once it finishes constructing its next class of rocket-powered planes at a facility in neighboring Arizona.
