Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Sun-News
MOJAVE, CALIF. – NASA has booked at least one suborbital flight, with the possibility for two more, from Virgin Galactic, a spaceline that will launch from just north of Doña Ana County.
Virgin Galactic had previously announced it was among the commercial spaceflight companies selected by NASA to carry researchers and their experiments to space, but didn’t have specifics about the contracts. The agreement includes options for the two additional flights, and, if they’re exercised, the contract value would be $4.5 million, according to Virgin Galactic.
Virgin Galactic will launch its suborbital spaceflights from Spaceport America, about 45 miles north of Las Cruces. The company said in a news release the arrangement with NASA “dramatically increases the access researchers currently have to space.”
Each mission can carry about 1,300 pounds of scientific experiments, allowing for as many as 600 experiments per flight, the company said.
“Virgin Galactic will provide a flight test engineer on every flight to monitor and interact with experiments as necessary, a capability that has never before been available on suborbital vehicles,” the company said in a news release. “If requested, these experiments can be quickly accessed after landing, a feature critical to many types of experiments.”
Virgin Galactic, which also plans to carry tourists to space, to date has collected more than $58 million in deposits from 455 future passengers.
Said George Whitesides, president and CEO of Virgin Galactic, “An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive. At Virgin Galactic, we are fully dedicated to revolutionizing access to space, both for tourist astronauts and, through programs like this, for researchers.”
NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, managed by NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., is contracting the flights.
