June 29 (UPI) -- Virgin Galactic completed its first commercial flight Thursday with three passengers, each of whom paid $450,000 for the ride.
The SpaceShipTwo mission, which took off from New Mexico, was flown on the VSS Unity spacecraft, which was carried aboard the VMS Eve Spaceship Carrier aircraft before separating from Eve at about 50,000 feet and flying to the edge of space under its own power.
VSS unity was piloted by Nicole Pecile and Mike Masucci, and it carried Col. Walter Villadei and Lt. Angelo Landolfi, of the Italian Air Force, and Pantaleone Carlucci, of the Italian National Research Council, to suborbital space.
The passengers were accompanied by Virgin Galactic's Astronaut Instructor Colin Bennett.
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"'Galactic 01' is our first commercial spaceflight and we're honored to have been selected by the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council to support their first space research mission, 'Virtue 1'. Virgin Galactic's research missions will usher in a new era of repeatable and reliable access to space for government and research institutions for years to come," Virgin Galactic CEO Micheal Colglazier said in a statement.
Virgin Galactic live-tweeted the flight throughout the mission.
"We have Galactic 01 take-off from Spaceport New Mexico!," Virgin Galactic tweeted at 10:39 a.m.
"VSS Unity is currently climbing to release altitude. Our Galactic 01 crew from the Italian Air Force and Italian National Research Council are preparing to conduct 13 scientific research experiments throughout the stages of flight," the company tweeted at 11:08 a.m.
By 11:37 Virgin Galactic reported that the VSS Unity had reached space.
"Benvenuti nello spazio, Galactic 01! Our crew from the Italian Air Force and Italian National Research Council have reached space," Virgin Galactic tweeted.
At 11:49 a.m. Virgin Galactic tweeted "welcome back to Earth, Galactic 01! Our pilots, crew and spaceship have landed smoothly at Spaceport New Mexico."
After the flight, Colglazier celebrated the success of the mission.
"Today, our team successfully flew six people and more than a dozen research payloads to space in VSS Unity, our unique suborbital science lab. This historic flight was our first commercial flight and our first dedicated commercial research mission," Colglazier said.
The Virgin Galactic CEO also provided details on the company's next commercial spaceflight.
"'Galactic 02'" our first spaceflight with private astronauts, is planned for August and we expect VSS Unity to continue with monthly space missions while we simultaneously work to scale our future spaceship fleet for a global audience," Colglazier said.
