Virgin Galactic crew complete successful space flight with Richard Branson onboard: Here's how they pulled it off

Virgin Galactic plans to begin working down its backlog of around 600 confirmed customers in early 2022.

Virgin Galactic's passenger rocket plane VSS Unity, carrying billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson and his crew, lands after reaching the edge of space above Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, U.S., July 11, 2021. REUTERS/Joe Skipper (REUTERS)

Billionaire Richard Branson and five Virgin Galactic Holdings employees pulled off a key test flight to space, bolstering the company's plans to debut tourism trips next year.

The VSS Unity space plane glided back through sunny skies to land in New Mexico at about 9:38 a.m. local time, shortly after detaching from a carrier aircraft and rocketing to an altitude of about 282,000 feet, or more than 53 miles (86 kilometers) above the Earth. Branson and the crew are expected to discuss the trip in a news conference later Sunday.

The suborbital journey kicks off a landmark month for the future of space tourism, with Branson looking to demonstrate Virgin Galactic's capabilities nine days before Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos plans to fly on a rocket made by Blue Origin, his space venture. Both companies envision businesses catering to wealthy tourists willing to pay top dollar for a short period of weightlessness and an unforgettable view of the Earth and heavens.

It wasn't immediately clear how long Branson, 70, and his fellow crewmembers experienced weightlessness. After reaching its highest altitude, the Unity pivoted in space and returned to the Spaceport America complex near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

The mission was the spacecraft's 22nd test flight and first with a large crew. Virgin Galactic has dubbed the flight “Unity 22,” and it's the first of two tests the company is planning this summer before an astronaut-training mission with Italian Air Force personnel later this year.

Branson was to evaluate the customer experience during the flight and in the various preparatory events Virgin Galactic plans around its launches. Also on board:

• Dave “Mac” Mackay, chief pilot. He is among Virgin Galactic's earliest hires. He is a former U.K. Royal Air Force test pilot and Boeing 747 aviator at Branson-backed Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. Mackay, who grew up in a rural village in northern Scotland, became the first Scotsman to fly to space.
• Michael “Sooch” Masucci, pilot. He is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel with more than 10,000 hours experience in the U-2 and F-16 jets, along with dozens of other aircraft types. He joined Virgin in 2013 and first flew to space in 2019.
• Sirisha Bandla, Virgin's vice president of government affairs. She will test the “researcher experience” during the flight with a plant experiment from the University of Florida. Born in Guntur, in the Andhra Pradesh province of southern India, she will become the second Indian-American woman to travel in space.
• Colin Bennett, a Virgin Galactic engineer. He will evaluate cabin procedures during the test flight. Bennett has worked for Virgin Galactic as an operations engineer for six years in California, according to his LinkedIn page. Previously, he was an engineer at Virgin Atlantic.
• Beth Moses, Virgin's chief astronaut instructor. She is making her second space flight after a trip in February 2019. The flight made Moses the 571st person to travel to space, according to Virgin Galactic. She will be the test director Sunday and the cabin lead. Moses worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for 24 years before joining the company. Her husband, Mike Moses, is Virgin Galactic's president of space missions and safety.

Virgin last flew the two-craft system on May 22. The company said the Unity performed well after more than two months of work to minimize electromagnetic interference that had delayed a planned February 2021 test. In a flight in December 2020, the rocket motor failed to ignite and the spacecraft glided back to the spaceport.

The test in May was the company's first successful powered flight since February 2019. Following the test that took place more than two years ago, flight engineers discovered hull damage on the spacecraft from air pressure that had built up after ventilating holes were accidentally covered, according to “Test Gods,” a book published this year by New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle.

The company plans to begin working down its backlog of around 600 confirmed customers in early 2022. Virgin Galactic has said it will resume ticket sales after the summer's test flights, with executives signalling that fares will be higher than the prior price of $250,000 a seat.

Virgin Galactic's shares have doubled this year through Friday, lifting the company's value to almost $12 billion.