Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft has six passenger seats and lots of windows

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  This gallery showcases (mostly) renderings of the interior of VSS Unity's cabin. [credit: Virgin Galactic ]

Virgin Galactic has released the first images of what the interior of its VSS Unity spacecraft will look like. The design shows a seating capacity for up to six passengers who will fly on board the rocket-powered space plane, crest at an altitude above 80km, and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

The images reveal a sleek cabin designed to give the company's "astronauts" a stunning view of the planet as they rise above most of Earth's atmosphere. Each passenger has two dedicated windows and two cameras recording their experiences throughout the flight. During the zero-gravity phase of the flight, the seats will bend nearly horizontal to maximize room inside the cabin. The seats are modular, so the cabin can also be configured with three seats on one side of the vehicle and research racks on the other.

"This is something that we have been working on for years, and it signifies the final run to commercial service," said George Whitesides, chief space officer of Virgin Galactic. "It signifies that we are in the stage where we're putting the finishing touches on our entire customer experience, and so it's a huge day for the team. It's a huge day for the people who work so hard to design and build and fly the interior, and it's a huge day for the whole company."

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