Watch the rocket launch in the livestream below:
3.46am
"It's the start of a new space age," Virgin Galactic engineer and livestream host Veronica McGowan says.
Live: Touchdown! Sir Richard Branson completes Virgin Galactic Unity 2 trip to space
Sir Richard Branson aboard Unity.
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Which is true - but it's also 3.46am in New Zealand and, as such, we'll be ending this live coverage soon. Thanks to all the space-enthusiasts and insomniacs who joined us. Get some rest!
3.40am
Touchdown! Branson and the team are back on safe ground. The Virgin billionaire can now add "astronaut" to his LinkedIn profile.
3.39am
The landing gear is down and locked. The team is about to land back on Earth.
3.35am
Sir Richard Branson says this was "the experience of a lifetime" after travelling to space.
Branson will turn 71 this week.
3.31am
The passengers aboard VSS Unity will briefly experience weightlessness.
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At this point, the spaceship is moving more like a glider.
The crew is currently listening to "New Normal", the new track by Khalid, who will soon perform the song down here on Earth, as part of the event.
3.26am
Unity has been released from the mothership and is headed straight up to space.
3.19am
In about 5 minutes, mothership Eve will release spaceship Unity.
3.12am
The crew is still aboard mothership Eve - named after Branson's mother. The view out of their window is not too shabby right now:
3.02am
Mothership Eve is currently ascending.
The entire trip to space today is expected to take about one hour, meaning Branson's whole return trip to space is shorter than some Auckland commutes.
2.54am
Former astronaut Chris Hadfield is one of the co-hosts of the event. He famously played a great cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in space so while we're killing time waiting for Branson and the team to reach the edge of space, why not revisit it?
2.52am
The Unity 22 team is now airborne.
2.45am
The livestream of the event, which you can watch above, has begun, hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert.
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2.36am
The Unity 22 crew is strapped in and ready for take off.
A temporary flight restriction around Truth and Consequences has been issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Story continues below:
Billionaire Sir Richard Branson's Unity 22 mission today completed its trip to space.
Originally scheduled for 1am NZT, the launch was then delayed 90 minutes to 2.30am, because of weather conditions.
Virgin Galactic today became the first rocket company to launch the boss when Richard Branson straps into one of his sleek, shiny space planes, in what is already a true space race, as the Virgin billionaire rushing to beat Amazon's Jeff Bezos as the first rich man to leave the planet.
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Branson assigned himself to Virgin Galactic's first full-scale crew, jumping ahead of Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos, an even richer rocketeer looking to launch himself into space.
Bezos' liftoff is set for July 20 from West Texas.
Branson's space mission launched from a town called Truth or Consequences, in New Mexico.
"It's a beautiful day to go to space," Branson tweeted one hour before lift-off, after arriving in the small town.
Prior to that, the billionaire tweeted a photo of himself meeting Elon Musk in the morning.
"Big day ahead. Great to start the morning with a friend. Feeling good, feeling excited, feeling ready," he wrote.
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A star-studded space affair
The livestreaming event will be hosted by comedian Stephen Colbert.
Grammy-nominated singer Khalid will perform his new song, "New Normal", at the landing site after Branson's return to Earth.
Boss on board
Just a week shy of turning 71, the London-born founder of the Virgin Group says he's "not apprehensive at all and it is the dream of a lifetime" to ride into space.
The longtime fitness fanatic put in extra effort to prepare for the brief up-and-down flight. "I'm in my 70s now so you either let yourself go or you get fit and enjoy life."
His wife, children and grandchildren will be there as he climbs aboard the rocket plane that's attached to a dual-fuselage aircraft for takeoff.
During the three to four minutes of weightlessness, "I'll be looking back at our beautiful Earth and taking it all in and realise that only 500 other people have done this". Closer to 600, actually, but still a relatively small number. Upon landing, he'll celebrate with "a great, great grin on my face".
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Who else is flying
Two pilots are needed to fly the rocket plane from the time it's released from the mothership to shoot into space until it glides down to a runway.
The self-described tie-loathing adventurer and troublemaker will join five company employees for Sunday's test flight from New Mexico's southern desert — the company's fourth trip to the edge of space.
It will be the third trip to space for chief pilot David Mackay, a Scottish-born test pilot for the Royal Air Force who went on to fly for Branson's Virgin Atlantic, and the second for chief flight instructor Michael Masucci.
Chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses, a former Nasa engineer, is also launching for the second time. Joining Branson as space rookies are lead operations engineer Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla, a vice president. The six will grab a lift from mothership pilots CJ Sturckow, a former Nasa astronaut, and Kelly Latimer.
Rocket plane
Virgin Galactic's space plane, Unity, will take off attached to a specially designed double aircraft nicknamed Eve after Branson's late mother.
After reaching nearly 50,000 feet (15,000m), the plane will be released and drop for a moment or two before its rocket motor ignites to send the craft on a steep climb toward space, exceeding 3Gs, or three times the force of Earth's gravity. The motor will shut off once the craft reaches space — a maximum altitude of about 55 miles (88km) is anticipated — enveloping the ship in silence as everyone but the pilots unbuckle, float and gaze out the 17 windows at Earth and the black void of space.
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After a few minutes of weightlessness, the occupants will strap back in as the plane reorients itself for entry — folding up its wings, then folding them back down in unique technique known as feathering. The rocket plane will glide back, Nasa space shuttle style, to conclude about 15 minutes of free flight.
Years in the making
Founded in 2004, Virgin Galactic got its start when Branson teamed up with aircraft designer Burt Rutan to provide the necessary spaceship technology. A 2007 rocket motor test in California's Mojave Desert left three workers dead and three more injured. Then in 2014 the rocket plane Enterprise — named after the "Star Trek" ship — broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot and seriously injuring the other.
Unity, the replacement ship named by the late physicist Stephen Hawking, began flight tests in 2016. It made its first trip to the edge of space with two pilots in 2018 and the second in 2019, both times from Mojave. The operations moved to New Mexico's Spaceport America, from where the plane soared on May 22 to achieve the company's third spaceflight.
What's next
After Branson's launch, Virgin Galactic plans two more test flights this summer and fall before inviting paying customers on board.
The next one will include more company employees, and the last will have Italian Air Force members conducting research.
If all goes well, the first of the more than 600 confirmed ticket holders will climb aboard next year. The company plans to reopen reservations once Branson soars. Initial tickets went for $US250,000 (NZ$360,000); no word on whether that will change. Branson promises a surprise after his ride to "give more people the chance to become an astronaut — because space belongs to us all."
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In the meantime, scientists are lining up for research rides, including Southwest Research Institute's Alan Stern, who was behind Nasa's New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond.
- With AP
