TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M.—Richard Branson reached the edge of space and safely returned to Earth, a trip that marks a turning point in the billionaire entrepreneur’s multidecade effort to help create a space-tourism industry.
The space trip that Mr. Branson and five other crew members completed Sunday on a Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. vessel lends credence to the company’s ability to safely take passengers to and from space.
Virgin Galactic, the company Mr. Branson founded, plans to initiate commercial service next year, charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for such flights. The test flight was aimed at evaluating systems and showing the safety of such travel in an attempt to spur the space-tourism industry. Executives also said they wanted to learn more about the passenger experience on flight.
The British entrepreneur and five crew members climbed 53.5 miles above the Earth’s surface in a spacecraft developed by Virgin Galactic. The VSS Unity landed back at the Spaceport America facility in New Mexico after a journey lasting about an hour. It successfully separated from the launch plane VMS Eve before its onboard rocket fired and sent it higher. The launch plane took off 100 minutes later than originally planned because of weather conditions.
At the peak of Unity’s 15-minute trip from plane to space to ground after it separated from the launch aircraft, Mr. Branson and some other crew members unbuckled from their seats and experienced weightlessness, peering at Earth and into space from a dozen windows in the cabin.
