Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson has selected July 11 as the date for the firm's first fully-manned missions to space, with the billionaire himself opting to make the trip himself, beating out rival Jeff Bezos' first trip by a mere nine days.
Unity 22 crew Virgin Galactic. Credit: Virgin Galactic
The crew for Unity 22's fully-manned test flight; from right to left: Dave Mackay, Colin Bennett, Beth Moses, Richard Branson, Sirisha Bandla and Michael Masucci. Credit: Virgin Galactic
This will take the billionaire space race to its next level as the two companies look to capture the market for commercial space travel.
Read more: Billionaire space race counts down to liftoff
The Unity 22 vessel will climb to a height of 90 km, giving those inside a few minutes in low gravity before returning to Earth. The company plans to live stream the whole event.
In all, six people will be present for this first trip.
Galactic reports that hundreds of people have already pre-booked seats to take a ride into space with the company.
While there is no set date yet for when commercial travel will commence, Branson has revealed tickets will soon start selling for their full price - $250,000.
Sir Richard Branson said: “I truly believe that space belongs to all of us. After more than 16 years of research, engineering, and testing, Virgin Galactic stands at the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good.
"It’s one thing to have a dream of making space more accessible to all; it’s another for an incredible team to collectively turn that dream into reality.
"As part of a remarkable crew of mission specialists, I’m honoured to help validate the journey our future astronauts will undertake and ensure we deliver the unique customer experience people expect from Virgin.”
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and its rocket, the New Shepard, will be making its first trip on July 20 - 52 years to the day after the moon landing.
Read more: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin greenlights commercial spaceflight
Bezos, his brother Mark, and the winning bid - clocking in at $28 million - will be sitting down to travel to the edge of space.
The two entrepreneurs are joined in the billionaire space raced by SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has chosen to mostly ignore the commercial spaceflight market in favour of helping establish lunar bases and Mars missions.
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