Virgin Galactic aircraft carrying passengers to space successfully 'travels'

Virgin Galactic successfully performed the first commercial flight carrying four passengers to sub-orbital space and back to Earth from the Spaceport America spaceport in New Mexico on June 29 during the Galactic 01 mission.

The flight reached suborbital space after 58 minutes and floated at an altitude of 85.1 km for several minutes before returning to Spaceport America and landing at 22:42 on the same day.

Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004 by businessman Richard Branson. The company's first aircraft, the SpaceShipOne, flew into suborbital space twice in less than a week and received the $10 million Ansari X prize in October 2024.

The SpaceShipTwo suborbital spacecraft was developed by Virgin Galactic based on that personal vehicle. The transport plane takes the SpaceShipTwo into the air. After reaching an altitude of 15,000 m SpaceShipTwo will separate and fire the rocket motor and fly into space. Passengers on the plane will spend a few minutes in zero gravity and observe the Earth in the black background of the universe. After about 70-90 minutes it will return to the runway.

Galactic 01 is just the beginning of the mission, Virgin Galactic plans to fly the second commercial flight, Galactic 02, in early August. The airline has already received reservations from 800 passengers to fly on SpaceShipTwo. Each ticket for this space flight costs $450,000.

Virgin Galactic is building a new Delta-class spacecraft that can fly once a week and is expected to be operational in 2026. By then, it will have a fleet of spaceplanes and transport planes that can take passengers into space every day, from multiple locations around the globe.