Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft hit a milestone Thursday in its quest to fly tourists off planet, rising more than 51 miles (82 kilometers) and breaching Earth’s atmosphere for the first time.
The brief voyage marked the first human flight to the boundary of space by a commercial space operator. It also underscored the rebound from a fatal 2014 accident by the space tourism venture founded by British entrepreneur Richard Branson.
Virgin’s VSS Unity had a 60-second rocket burn on its fourth test flight from Mojave, California. That sent the vehicle to an altitude of 271,268 feet (83 kilometers), above the 50-mile mark where the U.S. Air Force and other agencies define the edge of space. Another often-cited boundary is 62 miles (100 km), the so-called Karman line.
“What we witnessed today is more compelling evidence that commercial space is set to become one of the 21st century’s defining industries,” Virgin Galactic Chief Executive Officer George Whitesides said in a statement. “Reusable vehicles built and operated by private companies are about to transform our business and personal lives in ways which are as yet hard to imagine.”
Virgin Galactic’s previous flight, in July, rose to nearly 171,000 feet with a 42-second rocket burn.
The VSS Unity is dropped from a carrier aircraft at about 50,000 feet, at which point its rocket ignites and propels the vehicle on a vertical tear into the cosmos. At some point the company plans to fly customers who have paid as much as $500,000 for the thrill ride.
Virgin Galactic plans about three additional test flights before shifting to its spaceport in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where Branson himself hopes to soar to space next year, the billionaire said in an interview with Bloomberg TV from the California desert.
After that, the spaceflights will be open to the first of the 700-or so paying customers, Branson said. They would experience weightlessness and peer at the curvature of the Earth, based on Virgin’s video of today’s flight.
Champagne Glasses
Branson reflected on beating fellow billionaires and space entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to put humans into space, if not orbit.