All you need to know about Richard Branson going to space this weekend
ichard Branson will boldly go where no space baron has gone before on Sunday, when he steps onto the supersonic space plane from his rocket venture, Virgin Galactic.
Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity, as the spaceplane is called, has conducted more than 20 test flights. Branson's flight will take off in the early hours of Sunday, July 11, weather permitting. Virgin Galactic will be posting a livestream – hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert. Here's everything you need to know of the big event.
Who's going?
Branson is bringing three colleagues along for the ride. They include:
Beth Moses, who holds the title of Chief Astronaut Instructor at Virgin Galactic and will handle the training for all of the company's future customers. She's flown to space on VSS Unity once before, during a test flight. Moses, an aerospace engineer, won't just be along for the ride. She'll be ensuring her fellow passengers stay safe and that Virgin Galactic collects all the data it needs.
Colin Bennett, who is the company's lead operations engineer, will help evaluate the overall experience and ensure the cabin equipment is in good shape.
Sirisha Bandla, Virgin Galactic's vice president of government affairs and research. Bandla will be on board for the science. Virgin Galactic frequently flies experiments to makes use of the microgravity environment, and on this flight Bandla will be handling a University of Florida research project.
Virgin Galactic says that
Branson's job will be to use his "observations from his flight training and spaceflight experience to enhance the journey for all future astronaut customers."
What will happen?
VSS Unity's flight path is a wild trip, in general. Rather than taking off vertically from a launch pad like most rockets, the space plane takes off from a runway near Virgin Galactic's "spaceport" in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico on
Sunday morning. It will be affixed to a massive mothership, called WhiteKnightTwo, that looks like two sleek jets attached at the tip of their wings. The mothership takes about 45 minutes to cruise along and slowly climb with VSS Unity to about 50,000 feet. Then, when the pilots give the go-ahead, SpaceShipTwo drops from between WhiteKnightTwo's two fuselages and fires up its rocket engine, swooping directly upward and roaring past the speed of sound.
VSS Unity is a suborbital space plane, meaning it won't drum up enough speed to escape the pull of Earth's gravity. Instead, it'll rocket at more than three times the speed of sound – about 2,300 miles per hour – to more than 50 miles above ground. At the top of the flight path, Branson and his fellow passengers will briefly experience weightlessness.
After about a minute the engine shuts off, leaving the spacecraft and the passengers suspended in microgravity as SpaceShipTwo rolls onto its belly and offers the passengers sweeping views of the Earth below and the inky black void above.
To conclude the trip, SpaceShipTwo uses what's called a feathering system to raise its wings, mimicking the shape of a badminton shuttlecock to reorient the vehicle as it begins to fall back to Earth. It then lowers its wings as it glides back down to a runway landing.
How risky is this?
Space travel is, historically, fraught with danger. Any time a human straps themselves onto a rocket, there are risks involved — and Branson has apparently decided that, for him, it's worth it. "I think the least the founder of the company can do is go up there and fly with his people."