The Virgin test flight is the first mission for the company in which all six seats were fully occupied to go to the edge of space.īranson shared a video of himself cycling up to the facility for takeoff on the passenger rocket plane. Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity crew in zero gravity Sunday. He has denied, however, that he was trying to beat the Blue Origin founder. “You get lists and lists of the little things and it’s the little details that matter.”īranson wasn’t due to fly until later this summer but moved up his plans after fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos announced that he would be taking his own rocket into space from West Texas on July 20. It wasn’t … It’s so great to get out there and test the customer experience,” he said. “Initially, I thought testing the customer experience was a little bit of an excuse to get me on it. “Like most kids, I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid and honestly nothing could prepare you for the view from space,” Branson said in a ceremony with the crew to receive their wings after landing.īranson had joined the flight to test the customer experience for future space tourists. Virgin Galactic’s suborbital flight made history. to the runway.Ī crowd gathered at the tarmac cheered as the plane landed and the crew disembarked, with some spectators jumping into the air and hugging.īranson, who served as a mission specialist, threw his hands in the air to cheer the landing before jogging down the tarmac for an emotional reunion with his wife, children and grandchildren. The crew was then able to unstrap to experience a few minutes of weightlessness before gliding back around 9:40 a.m. Less than an hour after takeoff, the VSS Eve plane released its rocket at an altitude of 53 miles - farther than the 50-mile boundary considered by the US to be the boundary of space. Sir Richard Branson is weightless in space on his Virgin Galactic passenger rocket plane. local time from Spaceport America in New Mexico, about 180 miles south of Albuquerque. “Now looking down at the spaceport, congratulations to everybody for creating such a beautiful plane and all the hard work for getting us this far.”īranson set off with five employees a little after 8:30 a.m.

“It was the complete experience of a lifetime,” the beaming British entrepreneur, who will turn 71 in a week, said after shaking the hand of another member of the crew. Richard Branson won the “billionaire space race” on Sunday - launching himself and five others more than 50 miles above the Earth to the point of weightlessness in his own Virgin Galactic rocket.

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