Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, has announced that it will resume flights this month, with its first commercial trips launching in June. The Unity 25 mission will take place in late May with four company employees on board, and will be the company’s fifth trip into space. The total journey time is 90 minutes, with passengers experiencing a few minutes of weightlessness in the space plane’s cabin. Virgin Galactic uses a carrier aircraft that takes off from a runway, gains high altitude, and drops a rocket-powered plane that soars into space before gliding back to Earth. The crew for the Unity 25 mission will be made up of two men and two women, with two pilots assigned to the mothership and two to the spaceship. Virgin Galactic has sold 800 tickets for future commercial flights, with prices ranging from $200,000 to $450,000 each. Virgin Galactic is in competition in the space tourism business with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
