Canadian researchers could be the beneficiaries of a memorandum of understanding signed last Friday between the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Virgin Galactic.
The agreement was signed during a virtual industry day where Virgin Galactic presented its SpaceShipTwo spaceflight system which includes the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft and the SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle. Company representatives explained the payload opportunities and also provided an overview of mission training and human tended operations.
The CSA stated on their website that “the purpose of this collaboration is to explore the possibilities of using the Virgin Galactic Spaceflight System (VSS), which offers suborbital microgravity flights, for future CSA payloads and spaceflight participants. It also aims to facilitate the exchange of information on collaboration opportunities between Virgin Galactic, the CSA, and the Canadian space industry and academia.”
For academia, the CSA said opportunities could be available through its Flights and Fieldwork for the Advancement of Science and Technology (FAST) program.
Virgin Galactic is touting its services as a “low-cost entry to spaceflight activities and technologies.” In particular, they did emphasize their ability to train astronauts and researchers for flights. Human-tended research flights is definitely an area they appear to be aggressively selling. There is some merit to that selling point when comparing the cost of sending an astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) or buying astronaut time on the ISS. The tradeoff of course is a short suborbital flight duration.
While Virgin Galactic wouldn’t go into specifics of costs, citing each case as being different, they range from approximately US$100,000 to millions if training an astronaut for a flight.
Recently they increased their Pilot Corps to eight adding Royal Canadian Air Force veteran Jameel Janjua who has over 4,000 flying hours in more than 45 different vehicles.
A company representatives also stated that is possible that flights could originate or land in Canada.