Virgin Galactic launches third commercial flight on the down low

Friday Virgin Galactic launched its latest commercial missions out of New Mexico. However this time there was no fanfare, livestream, or post launch interviews with the customers. They simply went up, had fun, and came back down.

Virgin Galactic offers low-key flights space

Friday morning Virgin Galactic launched three customers on its VSS Unity suborbital spaceplane. The company didn’t release the names of the customers until after the flight was complete. The three individuals were early ticket holders like the previous customer flight last month.

The three, Ken Baxter, Timothy Nash, and Adrian Reynard, come from the United States, South Africa, and United Kingdom respectively. Joining them were Virgin Galactic pilots Nicola Pecile and Michael Masucci and Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses. Since the company’s first commercial flight, the customers have been accompanied by a Virgin Galactic employee to assist them during the flight.

The three customers were for the most part all businessmen, Baxter worked in real estate and Reynard with motorsports. While Nash has some business experience, he sits in an advisory position at National Geographic and calls himself an adventurer as well. Nash carried with him on this flight two fossils of ancient human ancestors, a collar bone and a thumb bone.

Galactic 03 lifted off from Spaceport America in New Mexico at 10:34 A.M. ET underneath its carrier aircraft VMS Eve. Once in its drop corridor and at the drop height, Unity was released from Eve and then powered on its hybrid rocket motor. This powered flight took it to an altitude of 55.03 miles, above the US recognized line of space.

This was Virgin Galactic’s fourth spaceflight in four months, an impressive cadence we talked about after the company’s previous flight. We are still awaiting for any information on when Blue Origin will return to flight. Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic seem to have finally got up to full speed, beating anything Jeff Bezos’ company has done in just a short few months.

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Quite different from Blue Origin’s ‘sale pitches’

Galactic 03’s coverage by the company was different than any other previous commercial spaceflight we’ve seen in the past. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin have made big deals out their private spaceflight missions, with Blue Origin kinda being the most on the nose about who they’re targeting.

While SpaceX’s coverage of their Inspiration4 and Axiom flights have been more for public outreach and openness with the media, Blue Origin’s stream are unapologetic sale pitches. The hype that Blue Origin, and yes even Virgin Galactic is guilty of it too, has always far outweighs the historical significance of the flight. But that won’t stop these companies from showing you highly epic promotional videos showing what you’ll do if you can afford a ticket.

Virgin Galactic for this mission on the other hand took a step back, with only live updates via X (formally Twitter). No livestream, no post flight interviews by the company, just a moment for the three customers to have some fun. Most importantly, no millionaires or billionaires or whatever they are, being portrayed as daring adventurers and equal to full time astronauts as many of us continue to struggle with high inflation.

Shout out to Virgin Galactic for knowing when to take a step back but still keeping the public in the loop.