Virgin Galactic is about to send three private passengers to space, including the first mother-daughter-duo and first Olympian to do so.
Richard Branson’s spaceflight company is set to send 80-year-old Olympic slalom canoeist Jon Goodwin to space on Thursday, alongside wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Anastatia Mayers, flying thanks to a competition run by nonprofit Space for Humanity. Goodwin bought his ticket soon after the launch of Virgin Galactic — so he could have paid anywhere between $250,000 and $450,000, which is what you’d pay today if you were so inclined.
Credit: Virgin Galactic
Flying aboard the VSS Unity, one of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplanes, the passengers will join crew and pilots for the company’s seventh spaceflight ever and its second commercial spaceflight — the first was a research mission in June, carrying a crew of six including two Italian Air Force officers and an aerospace research engineer.
There’s a few more firsts for the Galactic 02 flight, too: hailing from from Antigua and Barbuda, Schahaff and Mayers will be the first Caribbean astronauts to go to space; 18-year-old Mayers will be the second youngest person after Oliver Daemen, who flew with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin; and Goodwin will be the second person with Parkinson’s. But how do you watch it?
How to watch Virgin Galactic’s second commercial spaceflight
Galactic 02 has a flight window from Aug. 10 at 11 a.m. ET, launching from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
You can livestream the flight launch on VirginGalactic.com or on YouTube below.
What happens during the flight?
With the crew and passengers ready for launch, Virgin Galactic uses one of its jet carrier aircrafts to take off from the Spaceport’s runway. Once at release altitude, the VSS Unity uses its rocket engine to reach around 50 miles/80 kilometres above Earth. Then, those images you see of passengers floating about the craft? That’s the five minutes of weightlessness passengers really pay that money for. After that the VSS Unity descends back to Earth for landing. The total flight time will be around 90 minutes.
