Once a month: Virgin Galactic completes its commercial flight again, sending three tourists to the edge of space

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen Brother Black fly's left hand clue delivery! CTOnews.com, Oct. 7, Oct. 6, Virgin Galactic continued its monthly commercial suborbital space flight, carrying three tourists, including the first space traveler from Pakistan.

Virgin Galactic's spaceship VSS Unity 2 took off from Spaceport America Spaceport at 11:28 et attached to its VMS Eve mothership. VSS Unity was released from the plane at 12:10 et, reaching the highest point of 87.5km before gliding back to the runway of Spaceport to land.

Like the previous flight on Sept. 8, Virgin Galactic did not provide a live broadcast and was limited to posting updates on social media, which were themselves delayed.

There are three customers on the VSS Unity: Ron Rosano, Treavor Beattie and Namira Salim. Rosano is an American who participates in space education and works for a property management company. Beattie, a British advertising owner and filmmaker, accompanied founder Richard Branson to watch SpaceShipOne's flight in 2004 and signed up "on the spot" to participate in Virgin Galactic's flight, according to Virgin Galactic's profile. Salim, an adventurer and entrepreneur, was the first space traveler from Pakistan, but she now lives in Monaco and Dubai.

VSS Unity is commanded by Kelly Latimer and driven by CJ Sturckow. Like Virgin Galactic's previous commercial flights, the company's chief astronaut coach Beth Moses flew in with customers.

CTOnews.com noted that this was VSS Unity's fourth flight since it began commercial services at the end of June, and the company said it planned to maintain a monthly pace for the foreseeable future, slowly completing its backlog of orders from about 800 customers, some of whom paid ticket deposits 15 years ago.