Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo will take crew to space TOMORROW
VIRGIN Galactic is preparing for a crewed launch of its SpaceShipTwo space plane tomorrow.
Richard Branson's company is aiming to test out the suborbital VSS Unity craft on May 22.
This will be the third crewed flight of the craft.
VSS Unity can fit two pilots and six passengers.
It carried out successful tests in 2018 and 2019 and could one day take tourists into suborbital space.
Tomorrow's mission will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
As well as the two pilots, Unity will also be carrying some scientific experiments into space as part of NASA's Flight Opportunities program.
If all goes well with tomorrow's test, the space plane could begin commercial flights as early as next year.
What is Virgin Galactic?
Here's what you need to know...
Intrepid explorers are lining up - and digging deep - to travel into space with Virgin Galactic.
British billionaire Richard Branson, who founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, initially predicted the maiden space flight would launch by 2009.
But the date has been repeatedly pushed back due to technical problems.
In 2016, the late Professor Stephen Hawking unveiled Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo craft, called VSS Unity, after the first SpaceShipTwo craft VSS Enterprise crashed during tests in 2014, killing one of its pilots.
A successful maiden flight finally took place in mid-December 2018.
If all goes to plan, space fans will be launched more than 50 miles above Earth - a point at which Nasa defines as outer space.
Passengers will ride aboard SpaceShipTwo, a spaceplane designed to carry six passengers and two pilots.
It is carried aloft by a large aeroplane before breaking away and zooming to an altitude of about 62 miles.
Passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness before Unity fires up its engines and soars back to Earth, landing on a runway like a conventional aircraft.
With a hefty price tag of $250,000 (£175,000) a ticket, the 90-minute flight is being aimed at wealthy celebrities and thrillseekers.
Branson has said that "ultimately" he would like to see the price fall as low as $40,000 (£30,700) over the next decade.
Virgin Galactic is up against fierce competition in the private space race from firms such as Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
In other space news, China has released the first images taken by its groundbreaking Martian rover, Zhurong, on the Red Planet - including a "selfie".
Nasa has released historic first audio recordings captured on the surface of Mars.
And, China and Russia have pledged to build a shared Moon base, marking the start of a new era in space cooperation between the two countries.
Would you like to go to space? Let us know in the comments...
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk