How long virgin galactic flight

The U. VSS Unity is designed to hold up to six passengers along with the two pilots. This was the fourth spaceflight to date for Virgin Galactic, its second so far this year, and the first carrying more than one passenger. In addition to flying Branson, the spaceflight featured other goals, as Virgin Galactic is still testing its spacecraft system, aiming to begin commercial service in early The four crew members are testing the spacecraft's cabin and the training program Virgin Galactic has developed, to ensure it properly prepares customers for the experience.

Additionally, Bandla will test out performing a research experiment, as she is performing an exercise with plants in test tubes for the University of Florida.

Sunday's spaceflight is one of three remaining for Virgin Galactic to finish development, with two more expected this year. Shortly after the spaceflight landed, Branson announced that Virgin Galactic partnered with sweepstakes company Omaze to offer a chance at two seats on "one of the first commercial Virgin Galactic spaceflights" early next year.

The sweepstakes requires a donation, which goes to a non-profit called Space For Humanity. The billionaire added that he will put on his "Willy Wonka hat" to give the winners a guided tour of Spaceport America.

Branson has dreamed of going to space since watching the Apollo moon landings, and in founded Virgin Galactic to fly private passengers to space. The spacecraft's development has had multiple setbacks, however, including a rocket engine explosion on the ground in that killed three Scaled Composite employees and the crash of the first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Enterprise, in that killed Virgin Galactic co-pilot Michael Alsbury and injured pilot Peter Siebold.

The company then built VSS Unity, designed with additional safety measures to prevent future accidents. The trip will last in total about two and a half hours.

However, Branson and his team will only be weightless in space for four to five minutes before the craft tilts and returns to Earth. While Branson will be flying on a spaceplane, Bezos will be taking a rocket to space. When it reaches its highest arc, the capsule on the rocket will detach, giving passengers four minutes of weightlessness.

The capsule will then fall back into the atmosphere as parachutes are deployed to slowly bring it down. The whole trip will only take 11 minutes. New Shepard will also be the first time Blue Origin sends humans into space. Virgin Galactic has already successfully sent pilots on three space flights.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has grounded Virgin Galactic missions as it investigates how Sir Richard Branson's recent space flight drifted off course during its climb skyward.

The British billionaire fulfilled a lifetime ambition on 11 July by riding his rocket plane to 86km in altitude. But the New Yorker magazine has revealed how the vehicle flew for a period outside its pre-agreed airspace.

Sir Richard's company has disputed the New Yorker's description of events. It took such issues very seriously, it said, and was working to determine how to prevent trajectory deviations from occurring on future missions.

Thursday saw the company announce details of the next Unity flight - a research outing for the Italian Air Force. This had been scheduled for the end of September or early October, but must now await the results of the FAA probe. The New Yorker article was penned by Nicholas Schmidle, who's written a book about Sir Richard's near two-decade effort to develop a rocket plane capable of taking fare-paying passengers above Earth's atmosphere.

Mr Schmidle's magazine story said the pilots on the 11 July flight - with Sir Richard and three other company employees sitting behind them - received cockpit warnings about the off-course trajectory of their rocket-powered ascent.