Virgin Galactic will launch its second commercial spaceflight Thursday, and its first to carry an all-civilian crew including the first Caribbean astronauts, on the mission called Galactic-02.

A mother, her daughter and an 80-year-old former Olympian are scheduled to lift off for suborbital space, 53 miles above Earth, aboard Virgin Galactic's reusable space plane VSS Unity. The trip will be streamed live beginning at 11:00 a.m. EDT.

The three astronauts, Keisha Schahaff, Anastatia Mayers and Jon Goodwin will lift off from the commercial Spaceport America in New Mexico for the 90-minute flight, which will include three minutes of total weightlessness.

The crew will be flown on the VSS Unity spacecraft, which will be carried aboard the VMS Eve Spaceship Carrier aircraft before separating at about 50,000 feet and flying to the edge of space under its own power.

While VSS Unity does not reach orbit, its trajectory and altitude create several minutes of weightlessness as the crew will be able to view the curvature of Earth against black space.

"Meet the soon-to-be star bound members of Galactic-02, Virgin Galactic's first private astronaut mission," Spaceport America wrote in a post on X, as it introduced Thursday's crew members.

Schahaff, 46, and her daughter Mayers, 18, become the first mother-daughter duo to travel to space. Both are from Antigua and Barbuda, which will make them the first astronauts from the Caribbean.

Schahaff and Mayers won their spots through a lottery benefiting the nonprofit Space for Humanity.

Schahaff told NBC she's looking forward to "looking back and seeing a beautiful planet and then looking across to see my daughter's face while she's looking at it as well."

Mayers is a college student at Aberdeen University in Scotland, where she is studying philosophy and physics, and becomes the second youngest astronaut to fly.

"I'm hoping to give myself that confidence to try new things and be a little bit uncomfortable sometimes," Mayers said.

Jon Goodwin, 80, is a record-holding Olympian from Britain who competed in the slalom canoe event in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. While he becomes the first Olympian astronaut in space, Goodwin will also be the second person diagnosed with Parkinson's to fly.

"The fact that I'm suffering with Parkinson's for 9 years just shows you this attitude of space for all is a wonderful attitude," Goodwin said in an interview with Virgin Galactic.

In June, Virgin Galactic completed its first commercial flight carrying three Italians to suborbital space. Each of the passengers paid $450,000 for the ride. Despite the high price, there are more than 800 people on the waitlist, according to Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson.

Thursday's flight will be the company's seventh trip to space.

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