Next Virgin Galactic crew finalized

Accompanying the two pilots will be four mission specialists, all Virgin Galactic personnel chosen for skills that will help to evaluate astronaut training practices and the spaceflight experience.

Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor and veteran of two other Virgin Galactic spaceflights, will again take part as a crew member. In 10 years at Virgin Galactic, Moses has developed the company’s astronaut training program. She was the first woman to earn commercial astronaut wings for her February 2019 flight in Unity from the Mojave Air and Space Port.  

The other three mission specialists will be making their first spaceflights.

Astronaut Instructor Luke Mays is the newest Virgin Galactic member, joining from NASA earlier this year, according to the crew announcement. He brings experience in astronaut training and a background in working with international candidates.

Christopher Huie joined Virgin Galactic in 2016 as a flight sciences engineer and is the co-founder of the company’s Black Leaders in Aerospace Scholarship and Training program.

Jamila Gilbert is a New Mexico native who joined Virgin Galactic in 2019. Like many Virgin Galactic customers, Gilbert does not come from a technical or engineering background, and as such can evaluate the company’s customer readiness program.

“As a Latina woman of Purépechan-Mexican roots, a visual artist and a communications professional who speaks four languages, Jamila will bring a different perspective from the pilots and engineers who have flown before her,” company officials said in the crew announcement.

The spacecraft, dubbed “Unity,” will be piloted by veteran commercial astronaut Mike Masucci and veteran NASA and commercial astronaut C.J. Sturckow.

The mothership that carries Unity to launch altitude will be piloted by Jameel Janjua and Nicola Pecile.

The flight will be the 25th for the spacecraft. It is intended to be the final assessment of the system prior to beginning commercial operations in late June with the “Galactic 01” flight, according to company officials.

“Returning to space is what we have all worked towards. Our mission specialists were selected for their diverse expertise, and they couldn’t be better suited to validate the astronaut training program and overall experience,” Mike Moses, president of Spaceline Missions and Safety, said in a statement accompanying the crew announcement. “After this flight we will begin flying our customers to space.”

Unity last took to the skies on April 26, in an unpowered flight. It was the vehicle’s first free flight following nearly two years while the spacecraft and its mothership — named “Eve” — were down for modifications.

At the time, company officials said the glide flight was the final validation flight for the system before resuming rocket-powered, suborbital missions.

Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft last flew in a powered suborbital flight on July 11, 2021, with company founder Richard Branson on board.

That flight resulted in a Federal Aviation Administration investigation into a deviation from its planned flight path, about which Virgin Galactic had failed to inform the FAA.

The FAA cleared the company to resume flights in October 2021, but Virgin Galactic had already announced a delay in further flights as it investigated a possible manufacturing defect in one of the spacecraft components.

However, before resuming flights, the company decided to enter the spacecraft and the mothership into previously planned modifications.

During routine tests and analysis on the carrier aircraft’s structures, a team found a possible reduction in the strength margins of certain materials used to modify specific joints, which requires further inspection, officials said in a statement at the time.

Given the time that this further testing and analysis requires, officials decided it best to perform it alongside planned enhancements to both vehicles.

The mothership named “Eve” was flown to its birthplace at Virgin Galactic’s Mojave Air and Space Port facilities for the modifications. It left Mojave for the home base at Spaceport America in February.