Virgin Galactic successfully completed a second test flight of its SpaceShipTwo space plane from the company's New Mexico spaceport on Thursday (June 25), bringing the company one step closer to its goal of providing private spaceflights for paying customers. 

The suborbital space plane, called the VSS Unity, glided down to Spaceport America from an altitude of 51,000 feet (15,500 meters), where it was released from its WhiteKnightTwo carrier plane, called VMS Eve. On board the VSS Unity were two pilots, Mark 'Forger' Stucky and Michael 'Sooch' Masucci, who are both commercial astronauts. Piloting the VMS Eve were Nicola Pecile and CJ Sturckow.

While Virgin Galactic has completed several unpowered glide test flights of the VSS Unity before, this is only the second time that the test happened at Spaceport America. The VSS Unity's first flight from Spaceport America was on May 1; previous flights took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in southeastern California.