Virgin Galactic completes 1st spaceflight in over 2 years, inching closer to commercial service

Virgin Galactic's space plane completed its first spaceflight after a two-year hiatus, inching the company ever closer to being able to enter commercial service.

The Unity vehicle, with pilots Dave Mackay and CJ Sturckow behind the controls, flew to a height of 89 kilometres — or more than 291,000 feet — on Saturday after taking off for the very first time from Spaceport America, N.M.

The craft was carried to an altitude of 44,000 feet by a carrier aircraft called VMS Eve, which then released the Unity. Firing its rocket engine accelerated it to more than three times the speed of sound. It performed a backflip in microgravity at the edge of space before returning through the atmosphere in a glide, landing back on the runway where it first took off.

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