Success! Sir Richard Bransons' Virgin Galactic Space Tourism Flight Lands
 

Virgin Galactic: Sir Richard Bransons' Space Tourism Flight Successfully Completes Trip.

They Successfully Landed Back at Spaceport America Just Over an Hour After Taking Off.

Virgin Galactic has taken a former Olympian, a University of Aberdeen student and her mother to the edge of space on its first flight for tourists.

BBC 11 AUG 2023


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Zero Gravity


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Ana Mayers, 18, and her mother Keisha Schahaff, 46, both from Antigua, won their tickets in a competition.

They became the first mother-daughter duo to fly to space together.

Jon Goodwin, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, became the second person with Parkinsons' disease to go to space, a trip he called "completely surreal".

Mr Goodwin bought his ticket for $250,000 (then £191,000) in 2005.


The carrier mothership VMS Eve took off from Spaceport America, in the state of New Mexico, at 08:30 local time (15:30 BST).

Fifty minutes into the flight, the Unity rocket ship separated from Eve as planned.

A short time later, the passengers were given the all-clear to unbuckle and enjoy zero gravity, at an altitude of around 85km (280,000ft).

Ms Mayers, a second-year philosophy and physics student at the University of Aberdeen, immediately reached for the window to take in the views of Earth and the black of space.

The three then returned to their seats and strapped themselves back in ahead of the return journey.


A BBC graphic shows the flight plan of Virgin Galactic's Unity rocket. It was scheduled to take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico, after which the Eve carrier plan and the Unity rocket ship separated, which was followed by a 90-second climb at close to 4,000 km/h, with the craft then reaching the edge of space at just under 100km

Then experiencing zero gravity, before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere with folded tailbooms, and then going into an unpowered glide before returning to the ground


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