Space tourism ‘tantalisingly close’

Sir Richard Branson has hailed a successful first powered test flight of Virgin Galactic’s new space tourism rocket.

Virgin Galactic tweeted that the spaceship named Unity was carried aloft by its mother ship and released over California’s Mojave Desert yesterday.

The company says the spacecraft achieved supersonic speed before the pilots shut down the engine and it glided back to Mojave Air & Space Port.

Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard tweeted that “Space feels tantalisingly close now”.