Richard Branson reaches edge of space on Virgin Galactic flight [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson has successfully gone to the edge of space through his company’s rocket-powered vehicle on Sunday.
• Branson described the expedition as an “experience of a lifetime.”
• His company is expected to offer commercial suborbital flights next year.

British business mogul Richard Branson has successfully gone to the edge of space through his own space tourism company Virgin Galactic using a rocket-powered vehicle on Sunday.

The company’s first crusade with a full crew puts Virgin Galactic in a good position to entice the public as it plans to begin commercial space travel by next year.

Branson, who started his Space travel company in 2004, described the journey as an “experience of a lifetime” during a live broadcast while the vehicle is making its landing.

The test flight was a suborbital expedition, with the vehicle going up to the edge of space with an altitude of over 50 miles. The crew experienced zero gravity for around four minutes before descending back to Earth. The winged craft had reached over 55 miles in the past test flights.

The test flight commenced from Spaceport America, across a secluded desert place in New Mexico. The aircraft, called SpaceShipTwo Unity, is built to blast off on a traditional runway while it is attached to a carrier ship called WhiteNightTwo. The craft will be flying up to 50,000 feet before Unity will take off and power itself up to space.

The flight took off at around 10:30 ET on Sunday morning. Due to overnight weather conditions at Spaceport America, the launch time was roughly one and half hours late.

Alongside Brason and pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, the crew included three mission specialists from Virgin Galactic ━ chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses, lead operations engineer Colin Bennett and government affairs Vice President Sirisha Bandla.

The company will conduct several test flights in the coming months before it formally offers commercial flights with the public next year. Though the space tickets are not yet announced, Virgin Galactic said that suborbital joyrides would be valued at over $250,000 per head.

The company’s preparation had actually taken longer timings than what was anticipated. In 2014, Virgin Galactic endured an infamous misfortune after its first-generation SpaceShipTwo crashed into the Mojave Desert in California during a trial run. The incident resulted in one fatality.

“It’s taken 17 years to get to this flight, and of course a lot of personal wealth has been poured into it, but it also shows that this takes tenacity,” Space policy expert Greg Autry said.

The latest space flight came amid the ongoing competition between the business magnates in the private spaceflight industry. As of now, private space flights are being overshadowed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is also working hard as it prepares to have its own suborbital flight on July 20, with Bezos himself boarding his company’s first operational flight for the New Shepard rocket and capsule.

Source: AOL.com