It took about 45 minutes for Eve and Unity to reach the drop zone at 46,000 feet in altitude. Unity was slung beneath its VMS Eve mothership for takeoff at about 7:40 a.m. The third took place in May from Spaceport America, the venue for today’s test. Two of those flights were conducted from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port, in late 2018 and early 2019. Today’s trip followed the trajectory traced during VSS Unity’s three previous journeys above the 50-mile mark. “This effort was ‘classic Paul’ - have a vision, find the right person to execute that vision, fund the project, and exit, having left the world in an entirely different state than previously - in this case, demonstrating the feasibility of private spaceflight by actually doing it,” University of Washington computer scientist Ed Lazowska told GeekWire in an email. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is modeled after the SpaceShipOne rocket plane that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize for privately funded spaceflight in 2004, under the guidance of aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan with financial backing from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Showbiz celebrities like Kate Winslet contributed to a good-luck video released on the eve of the launch, space celebrities like Musk and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield were on hand for the takeoff, and the singer-songwriter Khalid unveiled a new tune titled “New Normal” after the landing. Hundreds of thousands of viewers were watching YouTube when the highly produced webcast began, several minutes after takeoff. The company arranged for live coverage of a test flight for the first time, with talk-show host Stephen Colbert signed up as the emcee. In keeping with Branson’s image, Virgin Galactic brought out the glitz for today’s proceedings at Spaceport America. As a result, he moved up the date of his long-planned flight to space.īranson insists he’s not in a space race with Bezos, but it’s hard to believe the self-styled rebel billionaire didn’t think about the extra attention he’d get for breaking the space barrier in advance of Bezos’ flight on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. “I’m beyond thrilled for all!”Ī month ago, it looked as if Bezos might beat Branson to the punch however, Branson drew extra encouragement from the success of the VSS Unity rocket plane’s latest test flight, and from the FAA’s thumbs-up for commercial operations. “After many decades of effort to get space tourism off the ground, we have not one, but two companies carrying their founders and our bad-ass friends to space!” former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver tweeted in advance of today’s takeoff. Watch #Unity22 launch and livestream TODAY at 7:30 am PT | 10:30 am ET | 3:30 pm BST. Feeling good, feeling excited, feeling ready. Great to start the morning with a friend. Only two other billionaires are in the same class: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who flew to New Mexico to see Branson off and has reportedly reserved a ticket for a Virgin Galactic flight and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who’s getting ready for a suborbital space ride on the rocket ship built by his Blue Origin space venture.īig day ahead. In the company of five crewmates, Branson became the first billionaire to take a rocket-powered ride on his own company’s spaceship, rising above the 50-mile mark that the Federal Aviation Administration considers the boundary of outer space. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson rode his company’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane into the skies over New Mexico today and did something that no billionaire has done before. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, VSS Unity, fires up its hybrid rocket motor to head spaceward.
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