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 US 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% in New York. The stock is down 34% so far this year.
(Adds details on astronauts in paragraph 5, share price in paragraph 7.)
