Sandra Hall Magnus is an American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. She returned to Earth with the crew of STS-119 Discovery on March 28, 2009, after having spent 134 days in orbit. She was assigned to the crew of STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle. She is also a licensed amateur radio operator with the call sign KE5FYE. From 2012 until 2018 Magnus was the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Yuri's Night is an international celebration held every April 12 to commemorate milestones in space exploration. It is named for the first human to launch into space, Yuri Gagarin, who flew the Vostok 1 spaceship on April 12, 1961. In 2011, Yuri's Night was celebrated at over 567 events in 75 countries on seven continents. Yuri's Night is often called the "World Space Party". The launch of STS-1, the first Space Shuttle mission, is also honored, as it was launched 20 years to the day after Vostok 1, on April 12, 1981.
The Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field is in Mojave, California, United States, at an elevation of 2,801 feet (854 m). It is the first facility to be licensed in the United States for horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft, being certified as a spaceport by the Federal Aviation Administration on June 17, 2004. The facility covers 2,998 acres and has three runways.
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 is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide 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, and then delayed again, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
Air launching is the practice of releasing a rocket, missile, parasite aircraft or other aircraft payload from a mother ship or launch aircraft. The payload craft or missile is often tucked under the wing of the larger mother ship and then "dropped" while in flight. It may also be stored within a bomb bay, beneath the main fuselage or even on the back of the carrier aircraft, as in the case of the D-21 drone. Air launching provides several advantages over ground launching, giving the smaller craft an altitude and range boost, while saving it the weight of the fuel and equipment needed to take off on its own.
The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic.
Spaceport Sweden is a company that plans to make Kiruna the primary European Spaceport for personal suborbital spaceflight for space tourism, research, education, and a hub for cross-industry innovation. Spaceport Sweden is built by the Swedish Space Corporation.
Frank Pietronigro is an American interdisciplinary artist, educator and author. He was the first artist to create "drift paintings", where his body floated within a three-dimensional painting that he created in zero gravity aboard NASA's KC135 aircraft. He is a former Associate Fellow at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at the Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts.
VSSUnity, previously referred to as VSS Voyager, is a SpaceShipTwo-class suborbital rocket-powered crewed spaceplane. It is the second SpaceShipTwo to be built and is part of the Virgin Galactic fleet. It first reached space as defined by the United States on 13 December 2018, on the VP-03 mission.
Steve Isakowitz is the President and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation assuming the position on October 1, 2016. The Aerospace Corporation is a leading architect for the nation's national security and civil space programs with more than 4,000 employees and annual revenues of $1.1 billion. Isakowitz is a recognized leader across the government, private, space, and technology sectors, having served in prominent roles at Virgin Galactic, the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, and the White House Office of Management and Budget. He is the co-author of the AIAA International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems, which received the Summerfield Book Award in 2003.
LauncherOne was a two-stage orbital launch vehicle developed and flown by Virgin Orbit that had operational flights from 2021 to 2023, after being in development from 2007 to 2020. It was an air-launched rocket, designed to carry smallsat payloads of up to 300 kg (660 lb) into Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), following air launch from a carrier aircraft at high altitude. The rocket was carried to the upper atmosphere on a modified Boeing 747-400, named Cosmic Girl, and released over ocean. Initial work on the program was done by Virgin Galactic, another Virgin Group subsidiary, before a separate entity — Virgin Orbit — was formed in 2017 to complete development and operate the launch service provider business separately from the passenger-carrying Virgin Galactic business.
Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides is an American public speaker, co-creator of Yuri's Night, and an author on space exploration. She accumulated over five hours of weightless time as a Flight Director for Zero-G Corporation, and plans to travel to space as a "Founder Astronaut" on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo with her husband George T. Whitesides.
Stuart O. Witt is the Founder and Owner of S.O. Witt & Associates, LLC. Witt is the former CEO of Mojave Air and Space Port and a member of the National Space Council Users Advisory Group.
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.
Mark P. "Forger" Stucky is an American test pilot and commercial astronaut. In these roles, he was an employee of Virgin Galactic, a private spaceflight company which is developing sub-orbital space tourism flights.
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.
Space Forge is a British aerospace manufacturing company headquartered in Cardiff, Wales. Its focus is to develop reusable on-orbit fabrication capabilities to enable the novel production of semi-conductors and alloys in microgravity.
