The founder of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson, in Sydney, Australia.
James D. Morgan | Getty Images
Virgin Galactic announced Thursday that the space tourism company will attempt to launch its next test space flight with founder Sir Richard Branson on July 11th.
Branson wants to knock his billionaire Jeff Bezos into space, because he wants to start his own company Blue Origin on July 20th.
“After more than 16 years of research, development and testing, Virgin Galactic is at the forefront of a new commercial space industry that will open space to mankind and change the world forever,” Branson said in a statement. “I am honored to confirm the journey of our future astronauts and make sure we deliver the unique customer experience that people have come to expect from Virgin.”
This will be Virgin Galactic’s fourth test space flight to date and its first mission with a crew of four on board as the company launched its final space flight on May 22 with just two pilots.
Virgin Galactic’s shares rose 20% during after-hours trading, from $ 43.19 on Thursday’s closing.
In addition to Branson, three Virgin Galactic mission specialists will be present: Chief Astronaut Instructor Beth Moses, Senior Operations Engineer Colin Bennett, and VP of Government Affairs Sirisha Bandla. Virgin Galactic pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci will fly the company’s VSS Unity spacecraft.
Virgin Galactic says it will live stream the space flight for the first time, a feed that will be available on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
On June 25, the company announced that the Federal Aviation Administration had granted a license to fly passengers on future space flights and Virgin plans to begin flying paying passengers in early 2022.
Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to build a space tourism company. The company’s spacecraft takes off from a carrier aircraft before accelerating to more than three times the speed of sound.
The Virgin Galactic spacecraft then spends a few minutes in weightlessness over 50 miles (80 kilometers) – the limit the US officially recognizes as space – before slowly turning around and sliding back to Earth to land on a runway.
Virgin Galactic only competes with Bezos’ Blue Origin in suborbital space tourism, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX puts passengers into orbit on longer journeys, such as to the International Space Station.
In June, Bezos announced that it would be flying Blue Origin’s first passenger flight on the New Shepard rocket. Bezos is slated to hit the market on July 20 and will fly with his brother Mark, winner of a $ 28 million public auction, and legendary aerospace pioneer Wally Funk.
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