Virgin Orbit, the sister company of spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, nailed its first-ever drop test on Wednesday using a dummy LauncherOne rocket deployed from a Boeing 747 carrier named Cosmic Girl, Space.com reported. Read More >>
Yesterday, Virgin Galactic sent its SpaceShipTwo commercial aircraft into space, a historic first for the private company. But at a maximum altitude of 51.4 miles (82.68 kilometres), the spaceplane fell 10.6 miles (17.32 kilometres) short of the Karman line – the internationally recognised boundary separating the atmosphere from space. Prompting the inevitable question: What the hell is space, anyway? Read More >>
A Virgin Orbit plane took off with a rocket under its wing on Sunday, marking a successful test flight for the company that hopes to provide satellite-launching services. Read More >>
Yesterday, the VSS Unity went supersonic during crewed tests, reaching speeds of 1,220 miles per hour. It’s the first powered flight of Virgin Galactic’s new SpaceShipTwo aircraft, and the first flight since the 2014 disaster in which a pilot was killed and a co-pilot severely injured. Read More >>
>Richard Branson at a mental health conference in April 2016 (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)“I hope in five years a reusable rocket will have been developed which can take up to 10 people at a time to stay at the Virgin Hotel for two weeks,” Richard Branson proudly announced back in 1999. Read More >>
On Saturday, with the large grin of Richard Branson to see it off, Virgin Galactic’s second SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, completed its first free flight over the Mojave Desert. Read More >>
In a new blog post for Virgin.com, billionaire Richard Branson writes about his recent flirtation with death, when he got into a gruesome bike accident while training for the Virgin Strive Challenge in the Caribbean. Read More >>
Sometimes, life gives you lemons. And then sometimes, it gives you Sir Richard Branson dressed as a mermaid, gazing happily at the camera as if to say, “My lifelong dream was not, in fact, to become an obscenely wealthy entrepreneur, but rather to bask in shallow waters with my fellow merpeople.” Read More >>
Two years ago, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceshipTwo, the space plane it hoped to use to send tourists into space, failed on a test flight and crashed in the desert. Now, Virgin Galactic has unveiled a brand new version of SpaceShipTwo. Read More >>
Space tourism sounds pretty fun, if exorbitantly expensive. The ticket to ride is far from the only pricey thing about it. Building a spaceport for launches and returns costs hundreds of millions. So why does Sir Richard Branson now want to build one in the UK, right after finishing one in America—which isn’t even sending folks to low orbit yet? Read More >>
Space cowboy Richard Branson and his company, Virgin Galactic, has showed off a 747-400 airplane that could launch rocket payloads from the air, straight into orbit. Read More >>
We've known about DARPA's plan to build a reusable, unmanned space plane for quite some time, but the agency just announced the companies that will help. Unsurprisingly, two feature famous billionaires who love space. Read More >>
If you're a motorsports fan, the start of the 2014/2015 inaugural FIA Formula E Championship is about as exciting as it gets, with a brand new electric car class burning rubber in 10 host cities around the globe. Adding its electrically-powered wheels to the race for the chequered flag is Virgin, which has just announced it will have a team battling it out in the competition. Read More >>
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