Engineering:Virgin Galactic Unity 21

Short description: 2021 American crewed sub-orbital spaceflight

Virgin Galactic Unity 21

VSS Unity in February 2016
Mission type	Crewed suborbital spaceflight
Operator	Virgin Galactic
Apogee	89.23 kilometres (55.44 miles)
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	VSS Unity
Spacecraft type	SpaceShipTwo
Manufacturer	The Spaceship Company
Crew
Members	David Mackay Frederick Sturckow
Start of mission
Launch date	22 May 2021, 15:26 UTC
Launch site	Spaceport America Runway 34
Deployed from	VMS Eve
End of mission
Landing date	22 May 2021
Landing site	Spaceport America Runway 16
VSS Unity spaceflights

Virgin Galactic Unity 21 was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity which took place on 22 May 2021, piloted by David Mackay and co-piloted by Frederick Sturckow. It was the first human spaceflight from the state of New Mexico. It was operated by Virgin Galactic, a private company led by Richard Branson which intends to conduct space tourism flights in the future. Unity 21 was the first human spaceflight to be launched from Spaceport America.

Reaching an apogee of 55.45 mi (89.24 km), the flight satisfied the United States definition of spaceflight (50 mi (80.47 km)), but fell short of the Kármán line (100 km (62.14 mi)), the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale definition.

Crew

Position	Astronaut
Pilot	David Mackay Second spaceflight
Co-pilot	Frederick Sturckow Sixth spaceflight

Flights are currently only by U.S Convention.

Flight

On 22 May 2021, Unity's mother ship VMS Eve carried it into flight in a parasite configuration. At 15:26 UTC, Unity was drop launched. Pilots MacKay and Sturckow flew Unity at a maximum speed of Mach 3 to a maximum altitude of over 89.23 km (292,700 ft). This altitude surpassed the 50-mile limit used in the United States to denote the limit of space, but fell short of the Kármán line. Both craft landed safely afterwards.