The target flight date for Virgin Galactic’s first commercial spaceflight, Galactic 01, is June 29, from Spaceport America.
The three-person crew from the Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy will board VSS Unity for a 90-minute flight to conduct a series of suborbital science experiments.
Thirteen human-tended and autonomous experiments will examine biomedicine thermo-fluid dynamics, and the development of innovative and sustainable materials in microgravity conditions. They will collect data through wearable payloads and sensors, and by autonomous payloads mounted in the cabin on Virgin Galactic’s payload rack system.
Conducting experiments are the Galactic 01 crew members, with the Italian Air Force include Mission Commander Col. Walter Villadei and physician Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi; and Pantaleone Carlucci, an engineer with the National Research Council of Italy.
Villadei will be tending to the rack-mounted payloads and wearing a state-of-the-art smart suit to measure his biometric data and physiological responses. Landolfi plans to conduct tests to measure cognitive performance in microgravity and to investigate how certain liquids and solids mix in microgravity and Carlucci will be conducting tests that involve wearing multiple sensors that examine heart rate, brain function and other human performance metrics during spaceflight and in microgravity.
Virgin Galactic will share a global livestream of the flight at virgingalactic.com. The livestream is expected to begin at 9 a.m. on the day of the flight.
