The first Virgin Galactic Spaceflight is set to launch this weekend, and one of the Earth’s biggest terrestrial stars has a new song coming to celebrate the occasion. Khalid, the baritone-voiced Texan who most recently released “Working” in collaboration with Tate McRae, will be putting out “New Normal” on July 21, commemorating the landing of the Unity 22 crew after the 22nd flight test for VSS Unity. He’ll also perform the song live on stage for its debut.
Khalid told Rolling Stone, “Around this time last year, I was super fascinated and gravitated toward space. I was watching this comet by the name of Neowise last year, and space travel is something that I’ve always been interested in as well. And I’ve been going through the motions of understanding this new, postmodern future that’s coming together, especially when it comes down to technology — it’s something that really excites me.”
He called the song his “personal therapy,” writing it to help him cope with the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. As he explained to Rolling Stone, I had to come to terms with who I was as an individual and the type of person that I wanted to be. And to me, this song, it just embodies hope for the outcome of our future.”
The launch stream will go live at 7:00 am MDT/9:00 am EDT on the day of the flight at Virgin Galactic.com and on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.