#VVS Unity 30 (14) Galactic 05

[mrm101]

Another Virgin Galactic flight today, this time a research flight with three commercial sub-orbital astronauts onboard. Galactic 05 will be the 14th powered flight of VSS Unity which with take off onboard the carrier aircraft Eve at 14:30UT. However it won't be televised (as will be the norm in future, apparently multi-millionaires are shy). One of the passengers has still not been revealed but is a franco-italian. The other two are payload specialists. Dr Alan Stern (pictured on left) is a US Planetary scientist and associate Vice President in Southwest Research Institutes (SwRI) space sector. He is best known as the principle investigator of the New Horizons Pluto mission and has played a key role in 30 sub-orbital, orbital and planetary space missions. He is also a former NASA Associate Administartor. He will be wearing a biomedical monitoring harness during the flight and conducting a dummy run for the operation of an astronomy camera. Stern will wear a Accutracker-II biomedical harness, Various iterations of this have previously flown on 68 Space Shuttle missons and Stern has also worn it during F104 Starfighter research flights. Dr Stern will also practice taking astronomical observations with a mock up Xybion wide angle visible and UV camera, for which he is principle investigator. This has also previously flown on two Space Shuttle missions. The real camera will be flown on a future flight, under NASA's Flight Opportunities program, for which Dr Stern will be practicing. Kelli Gerardi is a US Bioastronautics Researcher from the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS). She is operations lead for Palantir Technologies. She will be wearing a boimedical monitoring shirt and conducting payload experiments developed with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). She has also previously conducted an expedition to the analog Mars Desert Research Station and is an online presenter. She is the authour of 'Not Necessarily Rocket Science' and the childrens picture book series 'Luna Muna." During the flight Gerardi will wear and Asrtoskin, developed by IIAS, a biomonitoring lightweight shirt which has an all in one sensor suite developed by Candadian company Carré Technologies and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). It has an electrocardiogram which will monitor heart rate, breathing rate and temperature throughout all phases of the flight. The shirt is also used by astonauts while onboard the ISS. She will also conduct the IIAS experiment 'Configuration of a Confined Fluid in a Low Gravity Enviroment'. Gerardi will operate a fluid cell designed to better help predict and control the shape and location of fluid within a container in microgravity. This data can help inform the design of life-support systems and new medical syringe designs. Finally Gerardi will 'deploy' an implantable sensor that can continuously sample blood glucose levels and record them in the IIAS experiment 'Contiunous Blood Glucoose Monitoring in Suborbital Flight'. There is growing evidence that long duration spaceflight induces insulin resistance, a pre-diabetic state. This will offer insights, it is hoped, as to how quickly insulin-resitance develops during spaceflight. This will be one of the first uses of a glucose monitor in a microgravity enviroment. The next Virgin Galactic flight, Galactic 06, will be in January 2024. Rival Blue Origin is set to resume New Shepard flights (with a new booster), following an FAA investigation, on 30 November after booster NS4 suffered an engine failure on Flight NS-23, in September 2022, triggering the capsule to fire it's launch escape motor. Fortunately it was a research flight with no crew onboard. This upcoming flight is also an uncrewed research flight to check all is well with the new booster.