Virgin Galactic will begin broadcasting its first passenger flight into space today with CEO Richard Branson on board. It will last an hour and a half.
British businessman Richard Branson today, July 11, will make the first passenger flight on a Virgin Galactic device. According to the company’s technology, the VSS Unity suborbital ship will take off on the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, which is flown by two professional pilots. After undocking from the aircraft on thrust, VSS Unity will enter a suborbital trajectory and, upon reaching the specified altitude, will make a horizontal landing. Weightlessness will be present for 4 minutes.
The businessman noted that he wants to be the first to experience a passenger flight before starting to sell tickets in 2022. The device will go on an hour and a half flight, it will start at about, but may be delayed due to weather.
Virgin Galactic first announced plans to make a passenger flight into space in 2004. Then they planned to implement them by 2007. However, technical difficulties, including a fatal crash during a test flight in 2014, made the space project one of the most challenging in the company’s portfolio.
“I have wanted to go into space since childhood, and I hope that hundreds of thousands of other people over the next 100 years will be able to do the same,” Branson said. – Why don’t they fly into space? The cosmos is extraordinary. I want people to be able to look at our beautiful Earth, come back home and work very hard to try to do something magical with it, to take care of it. “
