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Virgin Galactic completes first commercial 'space flight' | DW News

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Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane, VSS Unity, succesfully took three customers and three crew to the edge of space on Thursday, almost 20 years after British billionaire Richard Branson founded the venture in 2004.

The vessel takes off strapped to a support plane, called Eve, then separates in mid-air and fires its rocket to climb almost vertically towards the edge of space.

On Thursday, the plane peaked at an altitude of 279,000 feet (roughly 85 kilometers or 53 miles).

That's just a short distance clear of what US authorities consider to be the start of space for the purposes of aircraft (50 miles), although it's quite a way shy of another commonly used benchmark, the Karman line (at about 62 miles).

At the apex of the flight, with the rocket shut down, the crew then experienced a few minutes of weightlessness before the Unity shifted into re-entry mode and began its gliding descent back to Earth.

The entire flight lasted some 75 minutes. Unity touched down safely at Spaceport America in New Mexico, part of which Virgin Galactic leases.

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#ViriginGalactic #commercialspaceflight #spacerace
Category
Europe
Tags
DW News, virgin galactic, space flight
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