Virgin Galactic said Wednesday that it has been contracted by the Italian air force for a suborbital research flight aboard its winged rocket ship.
The mission will be flown as early as next year, carrying three Italian payload specialists who will tend to the experiments while the craft is in space, the company said.
Virgin Galactic — founded by British billionaire Richard Branson — is best known for its plans to carry tourists into the lower fringes of space to experience weightlessness and view the Earth far below, but its spaceships also are designed to carry experiments that require several minutes of microgravity.
Virgin Galactic crews have reached space twice on test flights. A dozen experiments organized under a NASA program were flown in December duringThe Italian experiments were only generally described as including measuring biological effects on the human body during the transition from gravity to microgravity and possibly research on the chemistry of so-called green fuels.
Having the mission specialists aboard will enable researchers to respond to the experiments in real time and may improve reliability of the process by eliminating the complexity of automation, Virgin Galactic said.The company recently moved staff from its development and production site in Mojave, Calif., toVirgin Galactic has not yet said when it will begin its commercial flights. In July, Branson said three or four test flights would be conducted from New Mexico, beginning this fall.
The company, which has one operational craft, reported significant progress in construction of its next spaceship. An additional craft is also under construction.
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