Branson to beat Musk & Bezos in billionaire space race as he prepares to fly on Virgin Galactic ship next year
BRIT billionaire Sir Richard Branson will rocket into space aboard a Virgin Galactic spaceship next year, the company has announced.
The launch promises to blaze a trail for commercial flights aboard the firm's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, for which a reported 600 people have forked out $250,000 (£190,000) each to reserve a seat.
Virgin Galactic has repeatedly pushed back the date of its first passenger flight but now appears to have settled on early 2021.
The California-based firm said Monday it "expects to advance to the next phase of its test flight program" in Autumn with two manned flights.
"Assuming both flights demonstrate the expected results, Virgin Galactic anticipates Sir Richard Branson's flight to occur in the first quarter of 2021," the company said in a statement.
Virgin Galactic is up against fierce competition in the private space race from firms such as Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Owned by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, Blue Origin poses the biggest threat to Branson's firm, having also pledged to carry tourists on suborbital fights.
Blue Origin has successfully launched its New Shepard vehicle 12 times since 2015 and had hoped to take tourists to space this year.
Musk's SpaceX carries cargo for international space agencies and governments but recently launched Nasa astronauts to space for the first time and has pledged to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a trip around the Moon in 2023.
Virgin Galactic, founded by Branson in 2004, offers zero-gravity experiences to customers with its centerpiece SpaceShipTwo plane.
It also has long-term point-to-point travel plans to quickly transport passengers from city to city at near-space altitudes.
In June, Virgin Galactic signed an agreement with Nasa to develop a program to promote private missions to the International Space Station.
The firm's primary aim, however, is to one day take paying tourists on suborbital flights roughly 60 miles (97km) above Earth's surface.
Its space plane SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers and two pilots on zero-gravity flights lasting a few minutes before returning and landing at Spaceport America in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Virgin Galactic – Key dates
2004: Branson founds Virgin Galactic and says the first launch will take place in 2007
2007: Testing of SpaceShipTwo but three workers die in an explosion during the event. The $250m spaceport, Spaceport America is agreed to be built in New Mexico
2008: Sir Richard says the first voyage will take place within 18 months
2009: Sir Richard says that flights will take place from Spaceport America within two years
2010: Virgin Galactic hire Nasa’s chief of staff, George Whitesides, as its new chief executive
2014: Sir Richard predicts the first commercial flight will take place in early 2015. A fatal accident occurs during a test launch of SpaceShipTwo
2016: Test flights of SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, continue
2018: VSS Unity coasted through the black sky and into space, making history as the first human spaceflight to be launched from American soil since the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011. SpaceShipTwo landed from her maiden spaceflight on December 13, 2018
2019: On February 22, Virgin Galactic reached space for the second time in ten weeks with three people on board, reaching three times the speed of sound on the way up
2019: Virgin Galactic drops a space rocket from custom Boeing 747 over California in first successful "launch" test on July 11
Last week, Virgin Galactic live-streamed a virtual tour of SpaceShipTwo's cabin, featuring reclining seats and 17 large windows.
A circular mirror at one end of the craft will allow passengers to watch themselves floating in zero-gravity.
The online event marked the first public tour of SpaceShipTwo, which flew to the edge of space for the first time in 2018.
Unlike most space flight companies, Virgin Galactic will not use a rocket to launch tourists to space.
Instead, SpaceShipTwo will head to orbit strapped to an enormous carrier plane called White Knight Two.
At around 50 miles above the Earth's surface – the border of outer space as defined by Nasa – SpaceShipTwo will detach from its mothership.
Within seconds, the space plane will engage its rocket motor and fly at a near-vertical angle into suborbital space, hitting three and a half times the speed of sound.
After the rocket motor has fired for around a minute, the pilots will safely shut it down, giving riders a few minutes of weightlessness.
SpaceShipTwo will then swivel around and return to Earth, landing like a commercial airliner on the runway at Spaceport America in New Mexico.
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In other news, Virgin Galactic last week revealed the cabin of its rocket plane that will one day take tourists to space.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s Crew Dragon spaceship brought Nasa astronauts home from the ISS over the weekend.
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Musk announced last month that SpaceX's mission to get man on Mars is now the company's "top priority".
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