Virgin Galactic: Sir Richard Branson rockets to the edge of space

Virgin Galactic: Sir Richard Branson rockets to the edge of space

“I’ve had my notebook with me and I’ve written down 30 or 40 little things that will make the experience for the next person who goes to space with us that much better,” he said. “The only way sometimes you can find these little things is to get in a spaceship and go to space and experience it for yourself.”

Richard Branson reaches space on Virgin Galactic flight

Sir Richard Branson, after nearly 17 years of development and over a billion of dollars invested in Virgin Galactic, achieved his dream and reached space. Speaking from the spacecraft’s cabin, Branson called the spaceflight the “complete experience of a lifetime.” “I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid, and honestly nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space,” Branson said after landing. The company’s spacecraft VSS Unity launched above the skies of New Mexico on Sunday, with two pilots guiding the vehicle carrying the billionaire founder and three Virgin Galactic employees. VSS Unity – after being released by a carrier aircraft called VMS Eve above 40,000 feet – fired its rocket engine and accelerated to faster than three times the speed of sound in a climb to the edge of space.

Sir Richard Branson stands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) ahead of Virgin Galactic (SPCE) trading in New York, U.S., October 28, 2019. Richard Branson Virgin Galactic IPO NYSE

VSS Unity then performed a slow backflip in microgravity, when the Virgin Galactic crew was weightless and floated around the spacecraft cabin. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 86.1 kilometers (53.5 miles, or about 282,000 feet). The vehicle then returned through the atmosphere in a glide, to land back at the runway of Spaceport America where it took off from earlier.

VSS Unity is released from carrier aircraft VMS Eve during the launch of its third spaceflight on May 22, 2021. Virgin Galactic

Pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci flew Unity. Alongside Branson in the spacecraft’s cabin is chief astronaut trainer Beth Moses, lead operations engineer Colin Bennett, and VP of government affairs Sirisha Bandla. Both Mackay and Masucci have previously flown to space, as well as Moses and pilots C.J. Sturckow and Mark Stucky. The U.S. officially considers pilots who have flown above 80 kilometers (or about 262,000 feet) to be astronauts. VSS Unity is designed to hold up to six passengers along with the two pilots. The company has about 600 reservations for tickets on future flights, sold at prices between $200,000 and $250,000 each. “We’re here to make space more accessible to all at all,” Branson said after the flight. “The mission statement that I wrote inside my spacesuit was to turn the dream of space travel into a reality for my grandchildren … and for many people who are alive today, for everybody.”

The spaceflight goals

This was the fourth spaceflight to date for Virgin Galactic, its second so far this year, and the first carrying more than one passenger. In addition to flying Branson, the spaceflight featured other goals, as Virgin Galactic is still testing its spacecraft system, aiming to begin commercial service in early 2022. The four crew members are testing the spacecraft’s cabin and the training program Virgin Galactic has developed, to ensure it properly prepares customers for the experience. Additionally, Bandla will test out performing a research experiment, as she is performing an exercise with plants in test tubes for the University of Florida. Sunday’s spaceflight is one of three remaining for Virgin Galactic to finish development, with two more expected this year.

A sweepstakes for others

Shortly after the spaceflight landed, Branson announced that Virgin Galactic partnered with sweepstakes company Omaze to offer a chance at two seats on “one of the first commercial Virgin Galactic spaceflights” early next year. “You have a chance to go to space,” Branson said. The sweepstakes requires a donation, which goes to a non-profit called Space For Humanity. The billionaire added that he will put on his “Willy Wonka hat” to give the winners a guided tour of Spaceport America. “It’s a way of just trying to get lots of people who couldn’t otherwise afford to go to space, to go to space,” Branson said.

Branson’s journey

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson, front center, gathers with Virgin Galactic employees in front of the new SpaceShip Two VSS Unity after a roll-out ceremony of the new aircraft at the Mojave Air and Space Port on February 19, 2016 in Mojave, Ca. Ricky Carioti | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Branson has dreamed of going to space since watching the Apollo moon landings, and in 2004 founded Virgin Galactic to fly private passengers to space. He created the company to buy spacecraft built by aerospace designer Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, which created the SpaceShipOne vehicle that won a $10 million prize for flying twice to the edge of space within two weeks. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo system came out of Branson’s deal with Scaled Composites. The spacecraft’s development has had multiple setbacks, however, including a rocket engine explosion on the ground in 2007 that killed three Scaled Composite employees and the crash of the first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Enterprise, in 2014 that killed Virgin Galactic co-pilot Michael Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold. The company then built VSS Unity, designed with additional safety measures to prevent future accidents. Virgin Galactic began testing Unity in 2016 and, in December 2018, it reached space for the first time. Additionally, Virgin Galactic earlier this year rolled the next spacecraft in its fleet, VSS Imagine, which is the first of its next-generation SpaceShip III class of vehicles. Last month Virgin Galactic received a license expansion from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, allowing the company to fly passengers on future spaceflights. The company completed a 29 element verification and validation program for the FAA, clearing the final two regulatory milestones with its most recent spaceflight test in May. Branson was not previously expected to fly on Sunday’s spaceflight, as Virgin Galactic leadership had said the company planned to fly the founder on its second to last test flight. But after fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos announced he would fly on his company Blue Origin’s first passenger flight on July 20, Virgin Galactic rearranged its schedule — aiming to fly Branson nine days before Bezos. Launching ahead of Bezos or Elon Musk, Sunday’s flight means Branson is the first of the billionaire space company founders to ride his own spacecraft.

‘Welcome to the dawn of a new space age,’ Richard Branson says after Virgin Galactic flight

SPACEPORT AMERICA, N.M. — Virgin Galactic’s newly minted astronauts are beyond thrilled following their journey to space on the company’s first fully crewed spaceflight.

Today (July 11), Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson joined crewmates Sirisha Bandla and Colin Bennett in earning their astronaut wings following the successful launch and landing of the company’s Unity 22 suborbital mission. Beth Moses, who also flew aboard the craft, had already achieved astronaut status on a previous flight. The whole crew shared their excitement after returning to Earth, popping Champagne bottles, with Branson even lifting Bandla up onto his shoulders.

“It was just magical,” Branson said during the ceremony following the flight, which was Virgin Galactic’s fourth rocket-powered spaceflight. “I feel I’m still in space,” he added later during a post-launch news conference.

“Welcome to the dawn of a new space age,” he added.

Related: Virgin Galactic launches Richard Branson to space in 1st fully crewed flight

More: What to know about Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity 22 launch

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson (right) and the crew of Unity 22 celebrate their successful suborbital launch over Spaceport America, New Mexico after landing on July 11, 2021. Branson’s crewmates are: (from left) Colin Bennett, Beth Moses and Sirisha Bandla, all Virgin Galactic employees. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)

“We’ve been to space, everybody! " Branson cheered during a post-flight press conference. “So thrilling when a lifetime’s dream comes true.”

“I think like most kids, I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid and honestly, nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space … We have this incredible Earth,” Branson said of his flight. “I’m just taking it all in. It’s just unreal.”

“I was once a kid with a dream looking up to the stars, and now I"m an adult in a spaceship looking back to our beautiful Earth,” Branson said during the news conference. “If we can do this, just imagine what you can do,” he added in a comment directed to a group of children at the event.

Branson tweeted out an image of himself taken during the mission with this sentiment later on in the day.

Related: How Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo works (infographic)

I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I’m an adult in a spaceship looking down to our beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do https://t.co/Wyzj0nOBgX #Unity22 @virgingalactic pic.twitter.com/03EJmKiH8VJuly 11, 2021 See more

His crewmates were equally overjoyed with their experience. “I couldn’t be happier,” Bandla said during the news conference. She also shared how happy her parents were for her to accomplish this goal.

“They’ve heard me say I want to go to space since I was little,” Bandla said. “My dad hugged me so hard when I got here my sunglasses shattered … I couldn’t thank them more for their support.”

In addition to being exciting for the crew, the mission also went extremely well technically, according to Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic’s president of space missions and safety.

“Everything looked perfect in real time. We’ve looked at the data; we’ve done our quick engineering walkaround,” Moses said during the news conference. “Normally, we take it in the hangar to do that. But the quick walkaround on the ramp [was] perfect. The ship looks pristine — no issues whatsoever.”

As part of this test flight, the crew was tasked with evaluating multiple facets of the mission experience, including comfort, research, customer service and more.

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson (foreground) and his crew float in weightlessness aboard the VSS Unity spacecraft during their suborbital Unity 22 spaceflight on July 11, 2021. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)

“I was so honored to test the customer experience,” Branson said. “Initially, I thought testing the customer experience was a little bit of an excuse to get me on [the mission],” he said, but he added that he came to see how important it actually was. “It’s the little details that matter.”

Virgin Galactic’s flight came less than two weeks before Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle is set to make a crewed suborbital test flight with its founder, Jeff Bezos, on board. This has sparked questions of a “race” between the two billionaire founders to get to space before the other. However, Branson previously dispelled those rumors and continued to do so after this flight.

“It really wasn’t a race,” he said. “We’re just delighted that everything went fantastically well. We wish Jeff the absolute best, and the people going up with him during his flight.”

In the spirit of support among commercial spaceflight companies, Branson added that SpaceX founder Elon Musk showed up to show his support.

“It was great this morning to find Elon in my kitchen at 3 o’clock to come to wish us the best. I’d already been to bed and he still hadn’t gone to bed,” he said. “So nice of him to come all this way to wish us well.” Branson added that Bezos also sent a “goodwill message.”

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.