Richard Branson flies to the edge of space aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket plane on Sunday

摘要： Virgin Galactic plans to fly its first full crew to the edge of space, including founder Richard Branson. The company's space plane is set to fly with Branson onboard just days before Jeff Bezos's launch. Virgin Galactic will livestream the spaceflight on Sunday

▲圖片標題(來源：business insider)

Virgin Galactic is about to rocket four people — including the company's founder, Richard Branson — to the edge of space.

The company has flown people on its reusable, winged rocket plane, called SpaceShipTwo, three times since December 2018. But two of those flights involved only Virgin Galactic pilots. Only one of the flights carried a passenger.

On Sunday, the SpaceShipTwo plane, called VSS Unity, is set to carry the company's first full crew more than 50 miles above the Earth.

The vehicle requires two pilots and has room for six passengers. For this journey, the pilots will be Dave Mackay and Mike Masucci, and they'll carry Branson and his three crewmates: Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut instructor; Colin Bennett, the company's lead operations engineer; and Sirisha Bandla, the vice president of government affairs and research.

If the flight goes as planned, Branson would be the first person to launch to space aboard his own company's commercial vehicle. Jeff Bezos plans to do the same thing a mere nine days later.

"I can't wait," Branson told Today. "At that moment, we will have become astronauts. I will pinch myself and pinch myself again and again."

轉貼自： Business Insider

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