By Kirk O’Neil /The Street via MSN/ – Billionaire Richard Branson and a five-person flight crew Sunday completed a Virgin Galactic test flight on its VSS Unity space plane with plans to launch space tourism trips next year.
Branson and his crew departed from Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America launch site outside of Truth or Consequences, N.M., at 8:40 a.m. local time and returned at 9:38 a.m. after a mission to test the private astronaut experience and evaluate the commercial customer cabin environment and conditions.
The space plane reached an altitude of about 282,000 feet and Mach 3 or about 2,300 mph, three times the speed of sound.
“I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth, because I feel like I’m still in space,” Branson said at a press conference following the flight.
He added that “99.99% was beyond my wildest dreams.”
The space plane returned safely with no mechanical problems at first inspection, according to Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic president of space missions and safety.
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