Sir Richard Branson has finally begun commercial operations with his Virgin Galactic rocket plane, Unity.
The vehicle soared high over the New Mexico desert on Thursday to enable three Italians to conduct science experiments in weightless conditions.
It was the first “purchased” mission, as opposed to just a test flight.
Sir Richard will now begin sending up the 800 or so individuals who’ve bought tickets to ride on Unity.
The 72-minute mission took off from Spaceport America at 0830 local time (1430 GMT) and was livestreamed around the world.
Just under an hour into the mission, after reaching an altitude of 44,500ft (13,600m), the carrier plane, Eve, then released Unity to ignite its engine and boost up to the edge of space. At the top of its climb, the rocket plane was at 279,00ft (85km).
US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the world’s first ever space tourist in 2001, paying a reported $20m; and more recently Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin beat Virgin Galactic in the race to take paying passengers on short hops above the atmosphere.
The Amazon founder has a rocket and capsule system he calls New Shepard. It’s a different approach to Unity but provides a similar flight experience.
Some of Virgin Galactic’s ticket holders have been waiting over a decade to get their chance to visit the edge of space; and most will have a long wait still.
Unity can carry only a handful of passengers at a time, and with a mission rate of one outing per month it will take a while to work through the backlog.
The pace won’t improve until Virgin Galactic introduces a new class of rocket planes that are expected to make their commercial debut in 2026. These vehicles will have a flight cadence of once per week.
After Thursday’s mission, Michael Colglazier, CEO of Sir Richard’s company, said: “This historic flight was our first commercial flight and our first dedicated commercial research mission – ushering in a new era of repeatable and reliable access to space for private passengers and researchers.”
