Human spaceflight is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously, without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts, cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers.
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, feeling weightlessness, experiencing extremely high speed and something unusual, and contributing to science.
Human spaceflight programs have been conducted, started, or planned by multiple countries and companies. Until the 21st century, human spaceflight programs were sponsored exclusively by governments, through either the military or civilian space agencies. With the launch of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of human spaceflight programs – commercial human spaceflight – arrived. By the end of 2022, three countries and one private company (SpaceX) had successfully launched humans to Earth orbit, and two private companies had launched humans on a suborbital trajectory.
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company develops commercial spacecraft and provides suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic's maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010, but the date was delayed for several years, after some time then was delayed again, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
A commercial astronaut is a person who has commanded, piloted, or served as an active crew member of a privately funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while representing a non-government corporation but with funding or training or both coming from government sources.
Kellie Gerardi is an American social media influencer, customer support and media professional in private spaceflight, and commercial citizen scientist who is known for her sub-orbital spaceflight with Virgin Galactic and candidacy for the Mars One mission.
The following is a timeline of important events in the history of private spaceflight, including important technical as well as legislative and political advances. Though the industry has its origins in the early 1960s, soon after the beginning of the Space Age, private companies did not begin conducting launches into space until the 1980s, and it was not until the 21st century that multiple companies began privately developing and operating launch vehicles and spacecraft in earnest.
The year 2023 saw rapid growth and significant technical achievements in spaceflight. For the third year in a row, new world records were set for both orbital launch attempts (223) and successful orbital launches (211). The growth in orbital launch cadence can in large part be attributed to SpaceX, as they increased their number of launches from 61 in 2022 to 98 in 2023. The deployment of the Starlink satellite megaconstellation was a major contributing factor to this increase over previous years. This year also featured numerous maiden launches of new launch vehicles. In particular, SSLV, Qaem 100, Tianlong-2, Chollima-1,and Zhuque-2 performed their first successful orbital launch, while SpaceX's Starship – the world's largest rocket – launched two times during its development stage: IFT-1 and IFT-2.
Kelly Latimer is a combat veteran, retired United States Air Force lieutenant colonel, and commercial spaceship pilot. She was the first female research pilot to join the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center. She works with Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit, and was the latter's pilot in command for their first rocket launch in January 2021. Latimer flew the T-38, T-34, Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, Boeing C-17, 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft and the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy 747SP. On August 10, 2023 Latimer co-piloted VSS Unity along with Frederick W. Sturckow as commercial astronaut pilot of Virgin's Galactic 02.
VP-03 was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity which took place on 13 December 2018, piloted by Mark P. Stucky and co-piloted by Frederick W. "CJ" Sturckow.
Beth Moses is chief space flight participant instructor and interiors program manager for Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo program, and is a commercial astronaut, as classified by the Federal Aviation Administration. She was the first woman to make a spaceflight on a commercially launched vehicle, the VSS Unity VF-01 flight of 22 February 2019. She was also part of the six-member crew that flew in the first fully-crewed test flight to space on July 11, 2021, aboard VSS Unity.
Sirisha Bandla is an Indian-American aeronautical engineer and space tourist. She is the Vice President of Government Affairs and Research Operations for Virgin Galactic. She flew on the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission which made her the second India-born woman to go to space and the fourth person of Indian descent ever to go past the line of space after Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.
Oliver Daemen is a Dutch space tourist who flew as part of the 20 July 2021, sub-orbital Blue Origin NS-16 spaceflight. At the time of his flight he was 18 years old, and became the youngest person, first teenager, and first person born in the 21st century to travel to space using the United States definition of the boundary of space. He is a licensed pilot.
Galactic 01, previously referred to as Unity 23, was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity which launched on 29 June 2023. The launch was the first commercial spaceflight for Virgin Galactic. A research mission for the Italian Air Force, the crew consisted of pilots Michael Masucci and Nicola Pecile as well as crew members Colin Bennett, Walter Villadei, Angelo Landolfi, and Pantaleone Carlucci. The flight was postponed from its original planned October 2021 flight date for Virgin Galactic to upgrade its SpaceShipTwo vehicles.
Galactic 04 was a crewed sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity, which launched on 6 October 2023. It was the fourth commercial spaceflight and ninth overall spaceflight for American aerospace company Virgin Galactic, founded by a British business magnate, commercial astronaut Richard Branson.
Keisha Schahaff is an Antiguan and Barbudan, who, along with her daughter, Anastatia Mayers are space tourists who are the first citizens from Antigua & Barbuda and the first mother and daughter duo to fly to space. Their Galactic 02 launch occurred on 10 August 2023. Anastatia, at 18, was the youngest person to have gone into space using the United States definition of the boundary of space.
