Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic reaches space in overdue commercial debut
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Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. sent paying customers to the edge of space for the first time, a milestone for the Richard Branson-founded company almost two decades in the making.The VSS Unity craft reached space at about 9:30 a.m. local time in New Mexico, Virgin Galactic revealed in a livestream of the event on its website Thursday. That was about an hour after the flight took off, carrying six people on board, including researchers from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy. The commercial debut officially ushers Virgin Galactic into the ranks of space tourism providers alongside the likes of Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin LLC. Virgin Galactic has said it expects to move soon to a regular cadence of monthly commercial flights, bringing...