Sir Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic team aim for the stars with the success of their test flight.

The ship, known as the VSS Enterprise successfully completed its first test flight taking Virgin Galactic and the Virgin group owner, Sir Richard Branson one step closer to its goal of being the first ever company to offer commercial spaceship tours.

The ship was airlifted by a mother ship, White Knight Two, over the Mojave dessert of California and remained attached to it for the whole duration of its flight time, which was 174 minutes in total.

"Watching VSS Enterprise fly for the first time really brings home what beautiful, ground-breaking vehicles Burt (Rutan, the designer) and his team have developed for us," Sir Richard Branson said in a statement.

Virgin Galactic have already received around £30m from more than 330 amateur astronauts waiting for a seat on this 6-seater would-be commercial spaceship. Seats cost £133,000 for a few minutes of orbit.

In the near future, White Knight Two will tow the spaceship to an altitude of about 50,000ft before releasing it to allow its rocket engine to launch it into space.

written by Mark Gibbon

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