Virgin Galactic has unveiled for the very first time the suit of its future “space tourists”.
SpaceX is not a unique company that wishes to conquer space. Virgin Galactic, a Virgin Group company, owned by billionaire Richard Branson, is another. His reason? Its purpose is to sell suborbital flights to the public.
The pilot suit, who will bring future “space tourists” on a suborbital flight, has just been unveiled today. This will be more or less similar to that of tourists.
A little over 200,000 euros for a few minutes in a suborbital flight.
Virgin Galactic is a space tourism company that plans to send up to five passengers a year into space. The cost? From $ 250,000 (around € 206,000) for each person who wants to fly to an altitude of 110 km and for a duration ranging from one minute to one hour. All suborbital flights will depart from Spaceport America. The next test flight will be carried on December 11.
Today, therefore, it is the spacesuits that will be worn by pilots and customers that have been unveiled. Virgin Galactic said their top priorities when designing the suits were “safety and comfort”. The designers chose materials that were “light as well as strong”, without further details, weighing more than one kilogram.
The set is designed with “high-flying” fabrics, perfectly suited to multiple take-offs and above all, weightlessness. Virgin Galactic further states that these suits have additional padding around the shoulders to protect wearers from the straps that hold them in their seats, especially when they are weightless. The knitted fabric of the suit is also designed to regulate body temperature better. The pilots have little black inserts to differentiate them from the customers. Likewise, each suit is made to measure for each pilot.
Thus, these suits will be used for the very first time during a test flight which will take place on December 11. The shuttle will take off from New Mexico in the United States and from a brand new dedicated site.
On the SpaceX side, the first human-crewed space mission to Mars will likely take place in 2024. Elon Musk’s company and NASA have also launched a satellite to monitor sea-level rise. As for ESA, the latter is preparing to send a giant claw into orbit to clean up space debris, the ClearSpace-1 mission.