After Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson announced his date to fly to the edge of space. It may be 11 June, or very soon after.
He’ll be using the Unity rocket plane that his company Virgin Galactic has been developing in the US for two decades.
This rocket can fly to an altitude of 90 km (295,000ft). Thus, people onboard can experience a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of Earth’s arc.
Mr Branson aims to introduce a commercial spaceflight service with this adventure.
About 600 people have already lodged deposits to take the ride.
The British entrepreneur has become an inspiration for many people. And watching him do it means customers are now getting awfully close to having to hand over the full ticket price.
In some cases, the price will be $250,000 (£180,000).
Sir Richard Branson said:
“I truly believe that space belongs to all of us. After 17 years of research, engineering and innovation, the new commercial space industry is poised to open the Universe to humankind and change the world for good.
“It’s one thing to have a dream of making space more accessible to all; it’s another for an incredible team to collectively turn that dream into reality.”
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration granted Virgin Galactic a commercial spaceflight licence. This move will further help the company to take the business to new heights.
The opening which is termed as the flight “window” is on Sunday, 11 July.
Galactic’s focus is to ascent on that day, but there could be certain delays due to unfavourable weather conditions or maybe a technical glitch.
If everything goes according to the plan on Sunday, it would mean Sir Richard Branson stealing a march on his rival in sub-orbital space tourism, fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.
The Amazon founder announced his own trip to space on 20 July.
Sir Richard has clearly moved his first flight up in response to Mr Bezos naming the date for his opening mission.
Mission
In this mission, four Virgin Galactic employees will be riding as passengers to test the cabins for future tourists.
But Sir Richard stepped up and strapped himself in. Now, he’ll be one of the four testers.
The two pilots will be Dave Mackay and Michael “Sooch” Masucci.
People who will accompany the entrepreneur are – Beth Moses, Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, lead operations engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs.
After Sir Richard and Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk has already lined up several private missions in his Dragon Capsule.
Moreover, certain people want to launch private space stations for people to visit. Among these is Axiom, a company started by a former Nasa ISS programme manager.
