Italian Air Force personnel will make up most of the crew, but next flight to space could include some of the 800 customers on waitlist
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Three of the crew will be members of the Italian Air Force and the country’s National Research Council, who will perform several scientific experiments and collect data during the five minutes of weightlessness they’ll experience on the flight. The fourth is Colin Bennett, who flew with Virgin founder Richard Branson on a flight of the same vehicleSign up to receive daily headline news from the Calgary Herald, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
In addition to the four crew, Unity will be commanded by Mike Masucci, a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force who has previously flown to space three times aboard the craft. The pilot will be Nicola Pecile, a former lieutenant colonel in the Italian Air Force, making his first trip to space.The company is targeting a flight window between June 27 and June 30, and will launch from its private facility, Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Virgin hasn’t yet announced the crew for Galactic 02, but hinted that the flight may finally carry tourists who put down initial deposits on seats years ago. Some 800 people areThe company has seen its share of setbacks over the years, most tragically when VSS Enterprise, the predecessor to Unity, was destroyed during a test flight in 2014, killing pilot Michael Alsbury and seriously injuring Peter Siebold.
Virgin Galactic returned to spaceflight one month ago after nearly two years with a test flight called Unity 25, which sent six company employees to the edge of space and back. The flight allowed the company to do a final assessment of the “full spaceflight system and astronaut experience” before commercial flights, it said.
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