Virgin Galactic launches third commercial flight in step toward space tourism

Loren Grush, Bloomberg News

MOJAVE, CA - DECEMBER 7: Virgin Galactic unveils its new SpaceShipTwo spacecraft at the Mojave Spaceport on December 7, 2009 near Mojave, California. The eight-person VSS Enterprise, named after the Star Trek ship of the same name, is the first of a series of space-planes for customers of Virgin Galactic who have paid around $200,000 for a suborbital flight into space. British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson is financing the spacecraft and aerospace designer Burt Rutan is building it through The Spaceship Company, a joint venture of Scaled Composites and Virgin Group. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) , Photographer: David McNew/Getty Images

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. said it launched its third commercial flight Friday morning, sending another crew of paying tourists to the edge of space and back.

The flight, called Galactic 03, marks the latest milestone for the venture, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, as it strives to reach a monthly cadence of launches for its commercial business.

The mission took off at 8:34 a.m. local time, the company said in a post on social media site X, with Virgin Galactic’s VMS Eve carrier aircraft hoisting the space plane VSS Unity into the sky from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Roughly 45 minutes later, Unity dropped from the aircraft and climbed to the edge of space, the company said in another X post. 

On board this trip were two company pilots, three customers and one employee support astronaut, Virgin Galactic said. 

After the flight, Virgin identified the passengers as U.S. real estate investor Ken Baxter, entrepreneur Tim Nash from South Africa and Adrian Reynard, an engineer from the United Kingdom. The company also released a short video of the astronauts floating while in space. 

Galactic 03 comes a month after the company’s previous flight, which sent its first private tourists to space. Virgin Galactic kicked off commercial spaceflight operations in June with Galactic 01, a research mission for the Italian Air Force — a feat that came nearly two decades after the company’s founding.

Virgin Galactic’s shares closed down 2 per cent in New York. The stock is down 34 per cent so far this year.