TRUTH OR RESULT, NEW MEXICO (AP) — After a lifetime of yearning to fly into space, Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson was ready to blast off aboard his own rocket ship on Sunday in his boldest, grandest adventure ever.
The thrill-seeking billionaire joins five company employees who were also assigned for a test flight to the edge of space over the southern desert of New Mexico.
Ever the showman, Branson dramatically counted down the days to liftoff via Twitter. He saw the brief up-and-down trip as a confidence builder – not only for the more than 600 people who are already holding reservations and waiting in the wings, but for potential space tourists a shot at space. Willing to drop a few hundred thousand dollars. .
The London-born founder of Virgin Group, who turns 71 in a week, was not supposed to fly until the end of this summer. But he assigned himself an earlier flight after Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos announced plans to ride his own rocket into space from West Texas on July 20.
Virgin Galactic doesn’t expect to begin flying customers until next year. Blue Origin hasn’t started selling tickets or even announced prices yet, but it was claimed via Twitter late last week that it would step up customers and offer bigger windows.
Unlike Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which launch capsules atop reusable booster rockets, Virgin Galactic uses a twin-fuselage aircraft to receive its rocket ship, called the SpaceShipTwo VSS unit. is. The space plane is released approximately 44,000 feet (13,400 m) above the mothership, then propels its rocket motor directly into space. The maximum altitude is approximately 55 miles (70 km), providing three to four minutes of weightlessness.
The rocket plane – which requires two pilots – glides on the runway landing at its Spaceport America base.
This combination of file photos from 2019 and 2016 shows Jeff Bezos with a model of Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander in Washington, and Richard Branson with Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket in Mojave, California is. (Patrick Semansky, Mark J. Terrill/AP)
Virgin Galactic reached space for the first time in 2018, repeating the feat in 2019 and again this past May, each time with minimal crew. It received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to launch customers last month.