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Neil Kornswiet

American - (VG)

Occasional Spaceflight


Since Neil Kornswiet was a young boy in Ohio, he’s been fascinated with all things space and space travel. He watched the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo launches on his family’s tiny black-and-white TV; he devoured every space-related book he could get his hands on, as well as science fiction by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and others; and he was a huge fan of the 1960s TV show Lost in Space. But it was the opportunity to do legislative research for U.S. Senator John Glenn – the former Mercury astronaut –that cemented his lifelong passion for space. During their friendship, the Senator encouraged Neil to try flying airplanes and predicted that space tourism would occur during Neil’s lifetime. Now, after flying aboard ‘Galactic 06,’ space travel has forever changed the way Neil looks at the universe and his place in it, just as Glenn told him it would. Among other things, Neil is a commercial pilot with thousands of flight hours and flies his own Gulfstream G550 jet. His spacesuit displays a USA flag patch as well as a patch honoring John Glenn.

SpaceShipTwo | Galactic 06

Virgin Galactic | United States of America
Air launch to Suborbital flight
Jan. 26, 2024, 5:42 p.m.
Status: Success
Mission:

Sixth commercial Virgin Galactic mission.

Suborbital
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Founder: Richard Branson

Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company within the Virgin Group. It is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two.


Vega-C
Success
4 days, 19 hours ago
Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE)
Ariane Launch Area 1 (ELV) - Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana

Joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences to investigate the interaction between Earth’s protective shield …


Long March 8
Success
6 days, 8 hours ago
SpaceSail Polar Group #9
Commercial LC-1 - Wenchang Space Launch Site, People's Republic of China

18 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites with Ku, Q and V band payloads for the G60 constellation operated by Shanghai Spacesail Technologies with…


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 1 day ago
Dragon CRS-2 SpX-34
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA

34th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station operated by SpaceX. The flight will be conducted under the second Commer…


Kinetica 1
Success
1 week, 1 day ago
5 satellites
Launch Area 130 - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Share-ride of 5 satellites to sun-synchronous orbit: * Taijing-3-05A/B * Tianyi-50 * Tianyan-27 * Jilin-1 HR-03D-55


Zhuque-2E Block 2
Success
1 week, 2 days ago
Mass Simulator
Launch Area 96A - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

2.8 tonnes Mass Simulator launched to a 900 km polar orbit on a test flight proving further upgrades to the ZQ-2E, including a longer 1st stage and e…