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May 20, 2023

Virgin Galactic Readies for 25 May Spaceflight

Strength in Unity

On 17 May 2023, Virgin Galactic announced it would presently attempt a full-on suborbital flight of its Unity spacecraft. Subject undertaking, dubbed Unity 25, occasions the company’s fifth extra-atmospheric junket and is slated to launch from Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America facility in New Mexico on 25 May. By way of objective, the mission seeks to convey astronauts Luke Mays, Christopher Huie, Jamila Gilbert, and Beth Moses spaceward for purpose of conducting a final assessment of the full Virgin Galactic spaceflight and astronaut experience prior to the commencement of commercial services in late-June 2023.

To Prescott, and Beyond!

On 16 April 2023, nine undergraduate students representing Embry-Riddle’s Prescott campus set multiple rocketry records, including that for the highest undergraduate and collegiate amateur liquid rocket launch in the United States, by launching a rocket dubbed Deneb to an altitude of 47,732-feet—thereby more than doubling the previous record of 22,000-feet. During a total burn-time of 26.1-seconds, Deneb, which is named for a first-magnitude star in the constellation Cygnus, reached a velocity of 999.3-knots (Mach 1.5).