{"id":24152,"date":"2023-11-24T19:46:57","date_gmt":"2023-11-24T11:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/from-countdown-to-touchdown-flying-aboard-virgin-galactic\/"},"modified":"2023-11-24T19:46:57","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T11:46:57","slug":"from-countdown-to-touchdown-flying-aboard-virgin-galactic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/from-countdown-to-touchdown-flying-aboard-virgin-galactic\/","title":{"rendered":"From Countdown to Touchdown: Flying Aboard Virgin Galactic"},"content":{"rendered":"

For only the second time, VSS Unity<\/em>, Virgin Galactic\u2019s suborbital space plane, was transformed into a science laboratory. Galactic 05 successfully completed its mission on Nov. 2, but for Kellie Gerardi, Galactic 05 crewmember and Virgin Galactic Astronaut 021, the training and preparation for the flight goes back almost a decade. She sat down with NSF to detail what it takes to conduct commercial suborbital research.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Gerardi said her training began two years before the flight, but unofficially started a decade ago. She volunteered as a coat checker at the Explorers Club in New York City while in college. The organization is an esteemed society that aims to promote and recognize pioneers in scientific exploration and field study. Honorees include the Apollo 11 crew, Elon Musk, Sir Edmund Hillary, and more.<\/p>\n

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Kellie Gerardi in her flight suit prior to the mission. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)<\/p>\n

While volunteering, she met Richard Garriott de Cayeux, a video game designer who, in addition to being the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, purchased a seat aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket and visited the International Space Station in 2008. Gerardi thanks Garriott de Cayeux for first introducing her to the idea of commercial spaceflight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI graduated the same year that the space shuttle program retired, and I was oblivious to the existence at that time of this sort of nascent commercial industry and it blew my mind,\u201d Gerardi said. \u201cI just remember thinking \u2018I want to be a part of that\u2019 and so the goal was never even originally how do I get myself to fly? It was how do I help create the Star Trek future where we\u2019re democratizing access to space, we\u2019re expanding Earth\u2019s economic sphere?\u201d<\/p>\n

That encounter led her to meet the Suborbital Researchers Group, which included Dr. Alan Stern, who would fly alongside her on Galactic 05.<\/p>\n

Gerardi worked with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) before joining Masten Space Systems. During that time, she was able to work a few test stands away from Virgin Galactic\u2019s work zone in the Mojave Desert.<\/p>\n

She got her first taste of astronaut life and hands-on research while participating in an analog mission at the Mars Desert Research Station while joining the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS) in 2017.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was supposed to be there in 2016, but I was pregnant and couldn\u2019t fly,\u201d Gerardi said. \u201cSo, literally right after I gave birth, and when I say literally, I mean I was still wearing Spanx under my flight suit to keep all of my organs in place, I was like right there. That was really exciting because we tested a real prototype of their EVA suit during the Mars Desert Research Station rotation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kellie Gerardi donning her EVA suit as part of Mars Desert Research Station Crew 149. (Credit: Kellie Gerardi)<\/p>\n

During this time, she began working for Palantir. All of these experiences would lead Gerardi to her first flight to the edge of space.<\/p>\n

IIAS shared which experiments they planned to fly with Virgin Galactic more than two years before the actual flight took place, Gerardi said. When she found out she would be flying those experiments, she had a different reaction than most might expect.<\/p>\n

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Gerardi aboard a microgravity training flight. (Credit: Kellie Gerardi)<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that I\u2019m supposed to say I never could have dreamed of this, but that wouldn\u2019t be true because I dreamed of that in detail, excruciating detail,\u201d Gerardi said. \u201cWhen I knew that I was having the opportunity to fly, of course it\u2019s like an overwhelming gratitude for the trust that IIAS is placing in me, the confidence they\u2019re placing in me, the pressure that is being placed on my shoulders to be the, you know, best ambassador that I could be, not only for IIAS but also for suborbital science generally, for the commercial space industry, for women in STEM, for just like, you know, pick your sort of roulette slot, and I felt a sense of pressure to live up to those expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gerardi says she and Dr. Stern both agreed one of their most useful experiences in preparing for the actual flight was parabolic microgravity flights, where an airplane pitches up, giving passengers nearly 2G of force pushing against them, before pitching over and downward in the shape of a parabola, allowing just under 30 seconds of near zero-G conditions.<\/p>\n

Gerardi and Stern partnered with the National Research Council of Canada, which allowed for microgravity training aboard a Dassault Falcon 20 aircraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very dynamic environment in space, especially like immediately post-boost, and you\u2019ve got the main engine cutoff (MECO), and then you\u2019ve got the coast to apogee, but when the reaction control system (RCS) is firing in that vehicle, it\u2019s like something that was two inches away is now two feet away, and the vehicle inverts,\u201d Gerardi said. \u201cSo that part of flight, it\u2019s like you can academically prepare for it, and you know what\u2019s going to happen, and they prepare you so well. But when you\u2019re experiencing it, it\u2019s like, thank God we had that muscle memory to rely on of parabolic flight, because when you\u2019re doing something with fine motor, like I\u2019m opening a payload stowage solution, I\u2019m unstowing, I\u2019m securing, I\u2019m doing things, and that I don\u2019t think I would have been able to do had I not had that extensive experience in microgravity.\u201d<\/p>\n

IIAS facilities in Florida also allowed for flights aboard an Extra 300 for high-G training.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n