Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPCE) (“Virgin Galactic” or the “Company”) today announced the completion of its fifth successful human space mission in five months, ‘Galactic 04’.
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 fourth 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.
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.
The Company will now proceed with post-flight inspections and analysis in preparation for the next commercial space mission, ‘Galactic 05’.
‘Galactic 04’ in-flight facts:
- Take-off Time: 9:28 AM MT
- Altitude at Release: 44,341 feet
- Apogee: 54 miles
- Top Speed: Mach 2.95
- Landing Time: 10:25 AM MT
Press materials may be accessed via the newly launched Virgin Galactic Newsroom at https://press.virgingalactic.com, including:
- Full catalog of hi-res imagery and b-roll from all flights
- Pilot bios
- You can access astronaut bios here: https://www.virgingalactic.com/virgin-galactic-astronauts
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