Ramona Adams
Virgin Galactic and Italy’s space agency have signed a letter of intent to perform suborbital flight on the company’s SpaceShipTwo spaceplane.
The Italian space agency will conduct scientific research and suborbital experiments during the planned mission, which is scheduled to occur in 2019 at Spaceport America in New Mexico, Virgin Galactic said Monday.
The partnership will also include on-site pre-flight support for payloads as well as training and preparation of an Italian payload specialist that will fly aboard the spaceplane.
“Virgin Galactic suborbital flights will provide several minutes of microgravity, ideal conditions to develop and test payloads such as those which will operate for months, starting on 2021, on Space Rider, the reusable European Shuttle being developed at [the European Space Agency],” said Roberto Battiston, president of the Italian space agency.
The full agreement will identify scientific and technological research areas for payloads; the principal investigators; and successful payload proposals.
