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ORLANDO, Florida, July 9 (UPI) – A jet plane took off Tuesday morning from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, to try to break global flight records around the Earth, above the North and South poles.
Retired astronaut Terry Virts and a team of pilots from the British company Action Aviation will fly a business jet for about 48 hours. The smallest stop to refuel in Kazakhstan, Mauritius and Chile. A live video that was to show that the interior of the aircraft was operating sporadically during the first hour of flight.
"Just crossed Canada – 2 minutes before the scheduled date," tweeted Virts at 11:38, more than two hours after the start of the flight.
Progress of the mission can be tracked via a radar signal on FlightRadar24.com.
The Gulfstream G650ER is owned by a subsidiary of Qatar Airways. The drivers will try to win hours on a record that has not been contested since 2008, according to a press release from Action.
Two world records are at stake: one for the average speed established in 2008 and one for the total minimum time established in 1977 by a 747 Pan American.
The mission, entitled One More Orbit, paid tribute to the achievements of the Apollo lunar missions with a take-off time of 9:32 – the same time as the initial takeoff of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969.
Virts is a former commander of the International Space Station and a space shuttle pilot for Flight Endeavor 2015, the STS-130.
The flight is also designed to be "carbon neutral" using carbon sequestration offsets.
The flight is estimated at 25,000 miles. Qatar Executive and Gulfstream claim that the jet can fly at a higher speed over longer distances than any other aircraft, with a range of 8,630 miles.
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