Virgin Galactic is flying Richard Branson and crew to space today, July 11th, as part of the historic VSS Unity test space flight. The billionaire announced the test flight earlier this week, and that he would be among the crew, placing Branson ahead of billionaire Jeff Bezos and his own test flight on July 20th for Blue Origin.
The early morning flight was originally scheduled for launch at 8:00 am CT, but early morning preparations were delayed by weather. The new launch time is set for 9:30 am CT.
The Unity 22 test flight will include three additional crew members and two pilots. Flying with Branson are Beth Moses, Sirisha Bandla, and Colin Bennett, all Virgin Galactic employees. Unity 22 pilots are Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci.
Virgin Galactic is hosting a livestream event that you can watch at: http://virgingalactic.com. Hosting the livestream panel will be Chris Hadfield, Stephen Colbert, Khalid, and Kellie Gerardi.
Lifting off from Spaceport America in New Mexico, the entirety of the Unity 22 spaceflight will be around ninety minutes. However, the actual flight test in space will only last around twenty seconds.
