[ad_1]
The flight crew is on Thursday in front of a Qatar Airways Executive Gulfstream G650ER at the Space Florida launch and landing base at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo of Joe Marino / UPI | Photo License
ORLANDO, Florida, July 11 (UPI) – A team of airmen, including retired astronaut Terry Virts, landed Thursday morning at the Kennedy Space Center, claiming to have set three world flight records for circling the Earth over the North and South Poles. .
The mission, called One More Orbit, landed in Florida at 8:12 am EDT, a few hours before its tentative schedule. The flight time recorded was 46 hours, 39 minutes and 38 seconds. The average speed was 534 mph.
This would beat the official speed record established at 511 mph in 2008 and total duration of just over 54 hours. According to One More Orbit, a third record was set as two women on board, director Jannicke Mikkelsen and air hostess Magdalena Starowicz, are apparently the first women to have completed a polar circumnavigation of the world.
Officials of the International Aeronautical Federation and Guinness records are in Florida to check the records.
The flight took place on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing and the 500th anniversary of the departure of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan for his first voyage around the world.
The captain of the mission, Hamish Harding, told UPI Wednesday that the crisis on the South Pole was heartbreaking while the plane suddenly encountered a temperature well below the design threshold. Harding was in charge.
The jet crossed the post at just under 0 degrees Fahrenheit or -18 Celsius, flying over 40,000 feet above sea level. In an instant, says Harding, the temperature dropped to -117 Fahrenheit, or -83 Celsius.
"It was very extreme, far beyond our expectations," Harding said. "I had to dive immediately, to thousands of feet, to get warmer air."
As the plane landed Thursday morning, Virts tweeted: "Congratulations to the entire #OneMoreOrbit team for completing this flight around the world via both poles!"
Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka was also among the pilots participating in the mission. They slept in turn, piloting the jet and performing many tasks necessary to check the file, said Virts.
Virts has awarded NASA and Space Florida, the state's marketing and economic development agency for the space sector, support to the mission.
"NASA has allowed us to use the shuttle's landing facilities.Space Florida has gone to great lengths to help.Inmarsat has made communication possible for most of the trip," said Virst.
The jet comes from Qatar Executive, a division of Qatar Airways.
"We were happy to have Qatar Airways behind us and many people around the world are supporting us," Hamish said.
Hamish and Virts praised the three airports where stops of 30 to 45 minutes were made to refuel – in Kazakhstan, Mauritius and Chile.
"We're coming a lot faster than anyone, obviously," Hamish said. "All the others have to be cleared out of our way, but thankfully, the air traffic controllers like to see this type of mission and they have all been supportive."
The jet, a Gulfstream G650ER, can travel in a few clicks under the speed of sound. Several companies are planning faster supersonic jet planes, but Hamish said they would not have the same battery life as the G650ER. He hopes that the file is verified and that it lasts a long time.
Virts is in the process of making a documentary video of the flight, linking it to the history of the space program and comparing its orbits in flight space.
[ad_2]
Source link