Billionaire Richard Branson finally rocketed into space on Sunday morning for a sub-orbital test flight to space. The mission was intended to demonstrate his company%u2018s air-launched spaceplane is ready for passengers who can afford the ultimate thrill ride now.
Branson founded Virgin Galactic company in 2004 to provide adventurous tourist rides on rocket-powered planes to the edge of space and back. Though it took him 17 years to complete his commercial service project. The company said that it still needs to conduct two more test flights before it can be ready for the paying passengers.
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Branson and his five crewmates went to space on Sunday, the flight took off on Sunday morning around 10:40 a.m. from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The spaceplane separated from the carrier ship around 11:25 a.m. and zoomed to an altitude just above 50 miles, giving Branson and his crewmates about three minutes of weightless and spectacular views of Earth from above.
After a few minutes, the plane plunged back into the atmosphere for spiraling descent and soon landed on the spaceports%u2019 runway safely. Speaking to the camera in the plane%u2019s cabin during the glide, Branson called it %u201Can experience of a lifetime.%u201D
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Later he said that the whole thing was magical. Meanwhile, Branson%u2019s 90-minute trip began in a dramatic way as Virgin%u2019s twin-fuselage carrier jet with the VSS Unity rocket-powered spaceplane bolted under its wing and lifted away from the company%u2019s Spaceport lunch site at 8:40 a.m.
Virgin Galactic plans to begin launching paying customers at $25,000 or more per seat in early 2022. The flight upstaged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who scheduled his trip to space in a sub-orbital spacecraft of his aboard Blue Origin%u2019s spacecraft on July 20.
