A twin-hull jet launched Sunday with a Virgin Galactic rocket set to fly more than 80 miles into space over the New Mexico desert with British billionaire Richard Branson aboard the vehicle’s first fully manned test flight.
Branson, one of six Virgin Galactic Holding Inc employees who buckle up for the flight, has touted the mission as the forerunner of a new era in space tourism, with the company he founded slated to go into commercial operation next year.
The high-altitude launch of the VSS Unity rocket plane on Sunday will mark the company’s 22nd test flight with its SpaceShipTwo system and its fourth manned mission beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. It is also the first to carry a full crew of space travelers – two pilots and four “mission specialists,” including Branson.
VSS Unity seen in its hangar in a still from an undated handout video captured at Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. (Photo: Reuters)
A week before his 71st birthday, Branson and his crewmen stepped onto the tarmac at Spaceport America in New Mexico and waved to a crowd before boarding Land Rover for a short ride to the waiting Unity rocket plane parked at the end of a tarmac . You were strapped into the vehicle minutes later.
A video posted online by Virgin Galactic showed Branson arriving at the spaceport on his bike and greeting his crewmembers with a hug.
A festive gathering of space industry executives, prospective customers and other well-wishers was in attendance to witness the launch event, which was to be broadcast live in a presentation by late-night television host Stephen Colbert. Also in attendance was Elon Musk, a billionaire and pioneer in the aerospace industry who is also the founder of electric car maker Tesla Inc.
Grammy-nominated R&B singer Khalid was scheduled to take the stage after the flight to perform an upcoming single “New Normal”.
The launch from the state spaceport, located near the aptly named desert city of Truth or Consequences, was scheduled for around 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) after a 90-minute planning delay due to thunderstorms at night.
The crew of Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic board the plane. (Photo: Reuters)
The gleaming white spaceplane is carried on the underside of a specially developed twin-fuselage carrier jet VMS Eve – named after Branson’s deceased mother.
Separated from the mothership at an altitude of 50,000 feet, Unity’s rocket engine will then ignite to send the spacecraft straight up into the darkness of space at an altitude of about 88.5 km, where the crew will be in zero gravity for about four minutes will experience.
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When the engine is shut down near the climax of its climb, the vehicle is placed in re-entry mode before sliding back to a runway landing at the spaceport. The entire flight, from take-off to landing, should take about 90 minutes.
HIGH COST TICKETS
Assuming the mission goes well, Virgin plans two more test flights of the spaceplane in the coming months before it begins regular commercial operations in 2022.
Virgin Galactic’s airliner is parked before Richard Branson and his crew set off for the edge of space. (Photo: Reuters)
This is not a discounted travel service. But the demand is apparently strong, as several hundred wealthy would-be astronauts have already booked reservations at around $ 250,000 per ticket.
The Switzerland-based investment bank UBS has estimated the potential of the space tourism market to be $ 3 billion annually by 2030.
Given the inherent dangers of space travel, proving that rocket travel is safe for the public is crucial.
An earlier prototype of the Virgin Galactic rocket plane crashed during a test flight over California’s Mojave Desert in 2014, killing one pilot and seriously injuring another.
Branson’s participation on the Sunday flight, announced just over a week ago, is in line with his role as the daredevil manager whose Virgin brands – from airlines to music companies – have long been associated with ocean crossings in sailboats and hot air balloons.
SPACE RACING
Its ridesharing also dwarfs rival of astro-tourism company Blue Origin and its founder, Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos, known as the “Billionaire Space Race”.
Bezos plans to fly aboard his own suborbital missile, the New Shepard, later this month.
Branson has insisted that he and Bezos be friendly rivals and not enter into a personal competition to fight their way into space.
Bezos posted a message on Instagram on Saturday wishing Branson and his team the best of luck and “a successful and safe flight,” but there was still public resentment between the two.
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Blue Origin has said that Virgin Galactic failed to have a true spaceflight experience, saying that unlike Unity, Bezos’ New Shepard surpasses the 62-mile (100 km) mark known as the Kármán Line and approved by an international aviation panel The boundary between the earth’s atmosphere and space was set as defining.
“New Shepard was designed to fly over the Kármán Line, so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name,” Blue Origin said in a series of Twitter posts on Friday.
However, the US space agency NASA and the US Air Force both define an astronaut as anyone who has flown higher than 50 miles.
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A third player in the space race, Musks SpaceX, plans to send its first all-civilian crew (excluding Musk) into orbit in September, having already brought numerous cargo payloads and astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.
Branson’s official role on Sunday’s test flight is “to evaluate the experience of the private astronaut,” according to Virginia’s press material.
The spacecraft’s two pilots, Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, will control the ship’s rocket engine ignition and shutdown, activation of the vehicle’s “feathered” tail maneuver for reentry, and guide the spacecraft back onto its runway.
The other three mission specialists are Beth Moses, the company’s senior astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, Virgin Galactic Senior Operations Engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, a vice president for research and government affairs.
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