Yesterday, Sunday, the first manned tourist flight into space took off, carrying American billionaire Richard Branson, aboard a Virgin Galactic supersonic plane.
A video clip, posted by Virgin Galactic's Twitter account, showed the moment the VSS Unity vehicle was launched, which looks like two jet planes attached to the tip of the wings of the huge mother ship (WhiteKnightTwo).
Take-off!
The #Unity22 crew including @RichardBranson leave Spaceport America, New Mexico for #VirginGalactic's first fully-crewed spaceflight.
pic.twitter.com/RxGYp90nu8
— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) July 11, 2021
The plane took off at about 08:40 local time (14:40 GMT), from the US Spaceport base in New Mexico, where it is supposed to fly about 50 minutes, before launching the suspended vehicle below, which will operate its own engine until reaching space.
This dream took more than 20 years, as Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to create a winged spacecraft capable of accommodating eight people, including two pilots and six passengers.