That's it.

Under the eyes of his "mate" Elon Musk, Richard Branson left the cow's land.

Direction Space.

The British billionaire took off at around 8:40 am (local time), from Spaceport America base, in the US state of New Mexico, aboard Virgin Galactic.

The vessel must take him, as well as three other passengers and two pilots, to spend a few minutes in space, noted an AFP journalist on the spot.

The crew have boarded a carrier plane that must gain altitude for about 50 minutes before releasing the ship hanging beneath it, which will then fire its own engine until it reaches space.

A long-held dream

He has always dreamed of it and 17 years ago founded his own company (Virgin Galactic) to make it happen.

This Sunday, billionaire Richard Branson must finally fly into space from New Mexico, in the United States, to spend a few minutes in weightlessness.

The Briton hopes to get the nascent space tourism industry off the ground for good.

But also to beat Jeff Bezos, by winning the title of first billionaire to cross this final frontier thanks to the ship of a company which he himself founded.

Take-off scheduled around 4:30 p.m.

The other great rival of the founder of Amazon, the boss of SpaceX Elon Musk, has also announced on Twitter that he will attend the takeoff on Sunday.

"I'll go see you and wish you all the best," he told Richard Branson.

Billionaires have already traveled to space in the 2000s, but aboard Russian rockets.

Richard Branson's official role during the trip: to test and evaluate the experience that future customers will have.

Due to the weather conditions there, take-off was delayed by an hour and a half, Virgin Galactic announced early Sunday morning.

It is now scheduled for 8:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. GMT, 4:30 p.m. in France), with a live video broadcast on the Virgin Galactic website.

At the border of space

It is not really a rocket here but rather a huge carrier plane, driven by two pilots, which must first take off from a traditional runway and gain altitude for about an hour.

Below this plane hangs the VSS Unity spacecraft - an example of the SpaceShipTwo model - with two other pilots and four passengers on board: Richard Branson and three company employees.

At some 15 kilometers above sea level, the vessel, which is roughly the size of a private jet, will be dropped and ignite its engine for a supersonic ascent, until it exceeds 80 km - the limit set. in the United States for the frontier of space.

Once the engine is off, passengers can detach from their seats to float for a few minutes in zero gravity, and admire the curvature of the Earth from one of the cabin's 12 portholes.

After a peak at about 90 km altitude, the ship will descend while hovering.

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