Skip to main content

Virgin Galactic’s first fully crewed space flight delayed due to weather

WATCH LIVE: Virgin Galactic Unity 22 Spaceflight Livestream

Virgin Galactic is planning the first fully crewed space flight of its VSS Unity spaceplane today, Sunday, June 11. The original plan had been for the launch to begin at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT). However, this time has now been delayed by 90 minutes to 10:30 a.m. ET (7:30 a.m. PT).

Virgin Galactic says the delay is due to bad weather. “Due to weather overnight at Spaceport America, launch preparations are delayed by 90 minutes,” the company wrote in a statement.

Spaceport America, where the flight will begin and end, is located in Sierra County, New Mexico. Although there was rain there last night and early in the morning, the forecast for the rest of the day is warm and sunny so the flight should be able to go ahead as planned.

Virgin Galactic showed off some beautiful shots of preparations for the first fully crewed flight in a video posted to its Twitter account:

It’s a beautiful day to go to space. @RichardBranson and the #Unity22 crew have arrived at @Spaceport_NM in New Mexico. Get ready to watch our test flight LIVE at 7:30 am PT | 10:30 am ET | 3:30 pm BST on https://t.co/5UalYT7Hjb. pic.twitter.com/DdPJONJldI

— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) July 11, 2021

The plan is for the spaceplane VSS Unity to launch from Spaceport America, carrying a six-person crew including the founder of the company Richard Branson. The crew will be taken to the edge of space where they will experience several minutes of weightlessness before the plane glides back down to Earth and lands on the Spaceport America runway.

This is the first test of the planned space tourism service from Virgin Galactic, with seats on future flights of the service going for $250,000.

To watch the crewed flight live, you can tune in to Virgin Galactic’s livestream using the video embedded at the top of this page, or you can head to our how to watch page for all the details.

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Will SpaceX’s failed Starship flight impact NASA’s moon plan?
Artist concept of the SpaceX Starship on the surface of the Moon.

SpaceX’s Starship vehicle suffered what the spaceflight company called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” on Thursday. In other words, it blew up.

The good news is that the uncrewed rocket cleared the pad and flew for around four minutes before meeting its fiery end. It means the SpaceX team will have plenty of valuable data on the rocket's flight performance, enabling it to refine the rocket’s systems to give it an improved chance of completing the second test flight and sending the Starship to orbit.

Read more
SpaceX Starship rocket launches in first test flight, but explodes in midair
spacex starship launch explosion

SpaceX has launched its integrated Starship for the first time, with the spacecraft and rocket leaving the launchpad on a test flight. However, not everything went smoothly during the test, as the rocket exploded before the separation of the Starship spacecraft from the Super Heavy rocket booster.

The launch from SpaceX's Starbase facility at Boca Chica in Texas saw the Starship leave the launch pad at 9:33 a.m. ET, consisting of the integrated Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy Booster, which form the world's most powerful rocket. The combined Starship will be used for future missions to the moon and beyond, launched from a launch-and-catch tower standing at an impressive height of nearly 500 feet tall.

Read more
JUICE mission to Jupiter sends back first images of Earth from space
Shortly after launch on 14 April, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, captured this stunning view of Earth. The coastline around the Gulf of Aden can be made out to the right of centre, with patchy clouds above land and sea.

The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft, which launched last week, has sent back its first images from space -- and they are some stunning views of the Earth. The JUICE mission is on its way to explore three of Jupiter's largest moons -- Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa -- but it will be traveling for eight years before it arrives at the Jupiter system in 2031.

In the meantime, the spacecraft's cameras have been taking images pointed back at Earth. The images were captured shortly after launch on Friday, April 14, using JUICE's monitoring cameras. The two cameras are designed to watch over the spacecraft as it deploys rather than for scientific purposes, so they capture image at a relatively low resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels. Even so, they managed to get some gorgeous views of the planet as JUICE speeds away from it.

Read more