Virgin Galactic will be flying into space on October 5, carrying three space tourists, including one Pakistani.
Virgin Galactic is a spaceflight company that launched its first commercial space tourism flight on June 29, 2023.
On Thursday, the company announced the launch of Galactic 04, its fourth commercial spaceflight and ninth space mission overall.
It will host three space tourists from the US, the UK, and Pakistan. It will be the first time that a Pakistani will fly to space.
The names of the crewmembers are yet to be released but as per our research, Namira Salim from Pakistan will be onboard.
Salim is a Pakistani polar adventurer and artist based in Monaco and Dubai.
Galactic 04 will take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico, carrying the passengers to suborbital space and back. In simpler words, suborbital flight is a short journey into space where a spaceship goes up but does not stay in space. It leaves the earth’s atmosphere for a brief time and comes back right after. It is a quick trip to experience weightlessness and witness space. Unlike an orbital spaceflight, it does not circle the earth.
Space.com explains that the space tourists will be carried by Virgin’s VSS Unity space plane taken into the sky by a carrier craft named VMS Eve. Eve will drop Unity at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters); the space plane will then fire up its rocket motor to get to suborbital space.
“VSS Unity passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space. A ticket to ride the space plane currently costs $450,000”.
So far, the company has launched Galactic 01, Galactic 02 and Galactic 03 on June 29, August 10 and September 8, respectively; keeping up with its goal of launching at least one commercial space flight a month.
