Virgin Galactic will launch its first spaceflight in two years on its reusable space plane Unity on Thursday (May 25), but exactly when the launch takes place will depend on what time its carrier plane takes off.
The suborbital spaceflight company's Virgin Space Ship (VSS) Unity will launch a crew of eight to suborbital space and back from its Gateway facility at Spaceport America in New Mexico in a test designed to set the stage for regular commercial spaceflights to come. The Unity 25 test flight, Virgin Galactic's first spaceflight since its billionaire founder Sir Richard Branson and a crew flew aboard the Unity 22 mission in July 2021, is the last verification flight before the company's Galactic 1 commercial mission in June, the company has said.
"Unity 25 is the final assessment of the full spaceflight system and astronaut experience before commercial service opens in late June," Virgin Galactic said in a statement. The flight will launch the Unity SpaceShipTwo space plane from the air using its carrier plane, the Virgin Mother Ship Eve. Here's when and how the mission will take place.
