Virgin Galactic Makes History With Female Pilot for Galactic 02 Flight
On Thursday, August 10, 2023, Virgin Galactic flew its second commercial spaceflight, Galactic O2. This was a historic space tourism flight and a giant leap forward for women because the flight was piloted by Kelly Latimer, the world’s first female spaceship pilot, and CJ Sturckow. The flight also boasted the most females aboard a spacecraft. The passengers included a mother and daughter from the Caribbean, Keisha Schahaff and Anastasia Mayers, Beth Moses, who is Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, and Jon Goodwin, a former British Olympian. The flight blasted off with a total of four women and two men.
The crowning accomplishment for the flight was Kelly Latimer, who was hired by Virgin Galactic in 2015 as a test pilot. In 2022, she was promoted to Director of Flight Test and is currently the pilot for the Virgin Galatic mothership, VMS Eve. In addition to those accomplishments, Kelly Latimer has an impressive list of credentials. She is the world’s first female commercial spaceship pilot. She was the first female research test pilot hired by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, which was known as Dryden at the time she was hired, and she is a retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and a former combat veteran.
She has more than 7,000 total flight hours in more than 50 different aircraft, with 1,000 of those hours as test flights for the United States Air Force, Boeing, and NASA. With her expansive credentials, it’s no wonder she was hired as the first female commercial spacecraft pilot by the world’s first commercial spaceline.
The historic Galactic O2 spaceflight departed from New Mexico at 8:30 AM MDT. It achieved a maximum height of 55 miles above the Earth and reached a speed of Mach 3. The participants got to experience brief weightlessness and an unprecedented view of the Earth that few get to see.
After landing at around 9:30 AM MDT, Kelly Latimer was quoted as saying, “In my entire career, from the Air Force Academy to being a test pilot for NASA, nothing tops what I have just experienced at the controls of VSS Unity.” In fact, with her first flight with Virgin Galactic, she fulfilled a childhood dream – to fly into space.
The next Virgin Galactic commercial spaceflight is scheduled for September 2023. The goal of Virgin Galactic is to achieve one spaceflight per month. Currently, Virgin Galactic has about 800 passengers waiting to take off. Many paid between $200,000 and $250,000 for a seat on one of their commercial spaceflights more than 10 years ago. After that, ticket sales were paused. However, if your goal is to take a spaceflight with the world’s first female commercial spaceflight captain, the opportunity is available. Virgin Galactic did reopen its ticket sales two years ago with a per-seat price of $450,000.