San Francisco, May 23 (BNA): Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft VSS Unity Galactic completed a manned test flight on Saturday, the company said on Twitter.
The capsule, manned by two pilots, was launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
“Now in space,” Virgin Galactic tweeted, before the spacecraft returned to Earth, landing safely at the spaceport.
British billionaire Richard Branson, who plans to offer commercial space flights with his company Virgin Galactic, watched the test flight on site, Deutsche press agency (dpa) reported.
During a test flight last December, a test involving the VSS Unity did not go as planned. Rather than reaching space, the two pilots had to land the craft back on Earth after separating from the mother ship.
However, Branson’s space programme faced its worst setback in November 2014, when the previous model SpaceShipTwo crashed during a test flight over California, killing a pilot, possibly because the descent program was deployed too early.
Source: Bahrain News Agency