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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
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.


Kinetica 1
Go
11 minutes ago
Unknown Payload
Launch Area 130 - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Details TBD.


Falcon 9
Success
2 hours, 24 minutes ago
Starlink Group 15-27
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

A batch of 27 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Long March 2D
Success
17 hours, 21 minutes ago
PIESAT-2 13-16
Launch Complex 9 - Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

4 X-band synthetic-aperture radar Earth observation satellites for the Chinese Earth observation satellite company PIESAT.


Electron
Success
1 day ago
Owl By The Dozen (StriX Launch 12)
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B - Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand

Synthetic aperture radar satellite for Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective.


Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M
Success
2 days, 11 hours ago
Glonass-K1 No. 20 (?)
43/3 (43L) - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Note: Satellite serial number and Cosmos designation not confirmed. Glonass-K are the third generation of satellite design for GLONASS satellite n…