Friday's launch (February 22) of VSS Unity went off without a hitch. We were postponed from Wednesday. Sir Richard Branson was in town on Wednesday, but unavailable on Friday, since he had a prior pressing engagement in South America, raising money to help stop violence in Venezuela. Busy man! The Virgin Galactic team did him proud, launching the first woman commercial astronaut into space, Beth Moses. This was kept secret from the public until the mothership, White Knight Two, was on its way aloft Friday morning. So many secrets in the commercial launch game! Understandable -- it reduces overall program stress from press coverage and accordingly increases safety. VG loves coverage -- but safety first!
The launch was as dramatic as usual, with the space plane, at 50K ft, dropping from the mothership, and roaring its engines at us below as it shot into space at Mach 3.
The pilots have called the 5G assent "eye-watering". Nevertheless, all aboard, including Beth, were quite happy with the suborbital trip to space and back.
G-Field Recorder was onboard. That's two in a row for us -- VSS Unity accelerations captured for posterity. That might also be it for us aboard VG for a while, unless one of the crew decides to take us along on his/her own.
Awesome, launch. Well worth the wait. Nevertheless, my team were saying through smiles, "Thank God Its Friday".