Posted:

July 10, 2021, 17:43 GMT

The British billionaire will fly into space on Sunday, nine days before Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has wished success to Richard Branson, who will head into space on Sunday aboard his Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Unity spacecraft.

“I’ll see you there to wish you well,” Musk wrote on his account. Twitter This Saturday.

VSS Unity will launch at 13:00 GMT from Spaceport America’s space base, located in the state of New Mexico, USA, and will be the 22nd test flight of the spacecraft and the fourth flight of the Virgin Galactic crew.

Branson will be on board to assess the experience of the private astronauts and estimate how to improve future customer flights they plan to offer from 2022. By setting the flight for June 11, the British billionaire will fly into space. nine days ago From Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.

In the lead up to the launch of Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin claimed That the flight of her competitor cannot be considered space, because the ship will not reach an altitude of 100 km and therefore will not cross the Karmann Line, which is the division between the atmosphere and outer space.

Previous flights by Branson exceeded 80 km, and the last manned flight reached 88.5 km at its highest point. NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the US Air Force all recognize the 80-kilometre, or 50-mile, limit as the beginning of outer space.