Las Cruces woman on Virgin Galactic flight

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Jamila Gilbert, mission specialist for Virgin Galactic, will be included on the next Virgin Galactic flight, Unity 25, out of Spaceport America scheduled for late May.

Gilbert is an artistic, multilingual graduate of New Mexico State University who studied linguistics, anthropology and studio art. She joined the Virgin Galactic team in 2019, according to a Virgin Galactic press release. She will be one of the first 100 women astronauts in history.

“If there’s anything that equals her passion for reaching space, it’s promoting her home state of New Mexico,” the release said. “No one represents better than Jamila.”

The mission specialists, all Virgin Galactic employees, were all selected for their diverse expertise, each bringing a different skillset to validating the VG astronaut training program and the flight experience itself, the release said.

In addition to Gilbert, mission specialists on this flight include Chris Huie, flight sciences engineer, son of Jamaican immigrants, hailing from Florida, set to become the 19th Black astronaut in the world; Luke Mays, Virgin Galactic astronaut instructor, joined from NASA; and Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor.

“Returning to space is what we have all worked towards,” said Mike Moses, president of Spaceline Missions and Safety for VG. “Our mission specialists were selected for their diverse expertise. After this flight we will begin flying our customers to space.”

The four specialists will be assessing the total customer experience and providing ground-based training for commercial flights. An April 26 glide flight, Unity 24, provided data collected preparing for the Unity 25 mission.


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