Virgin Galactic has flagged a 5 October 2023 space mission window for its third paying passenger flight after its fourth successful spaceflight in four months was carried out on Friday [8 September 2023].
‘Galactic 03′ carried three commercial Astronauts — Ken Baxter from the US, Timothy Nash from South Africa and Adrian Reynard from the UK — to an apogee of 55 miles. Their flight follows similar missions in July when Virgin Galactic flew members of the Italian Air Force into space, followed by its first paying guests in August.
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Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, said: “What a thrilling day for our three new private astronauts and the entire team at Virgin Galactic.
“It’s an honour to see our ‘Galactic 03’ crew realise their lifelong dreams of spaceflight as they inspire our manifest of Future Astronauts. Each successful flight shows how powerful and personally transformative space travel can be, and we look forward to scaling our operations and making space travel more accessible to people around the world.”
‘Galactic 04’ will be Virgin Galactic’s fifth spaceflight this year, and ninth to date. The three private astronauts for that flight will herald from the United States, the United Kingdom and Pakistan – making that person the first to fly to space from that country.