Galactic 05 was a crewed sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity, which launched on 2 November 2023. It was the fifth commercial spaceflight and tenth overall spaceflight for American aerospace company Virgin Galactic.
Crew
Galactic 05's crew included three private passengers and three Virgin Galactic employees.
Stern performed studies of human body's reaction to zero-gravity by wearing a biomedical monitoring harness. He also wanted to develop in-space operation of a particular high-tech camera that is planned to be used on an astronomical research mission in the future by NASA. His flight and research were financed by Southwest Research Institute.
Gerardi flew the Galactic 05 mission as a payload specialist doing scientific research with Alan Stern, a private passenger also on board. Onboard, Gerardi operated three biomedical and thermodynamic fluid experiments on behalf of IIAS (International Institute for Astronautical Sciences, a private international education and research facility). Gerardi operated a fluid cell designed to help better predict and control the shape and location of fluid within a container in microgravity. She also wore the Astroskin biomonitoring device to collect a wide range of biometric data during her flight. A third experiment studied insulin-resistance during spaceflight, and Gerardi wore a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) to measure and store glucose readings. Her flight was paid for by IIAS and the research done was developed by National Research Council of Canada.
See also
- List of spaceflight launches in July–December 2023
References
