Now the space race is REALLY on! Branson’s Virgin Galactic is set to become first publicly-listed human space flight company – beating rivals Bezos and Musk
- Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp will invest $800m for a 49% stake
- Branson is up against Amazon founder Bezos’ Blue Origin and Musk’s Space X
- Earlier this year, Virgin Galactic soared to the edge of space with test passenger
- Musk launched unmanned Crew Dragon successfully, but it was later destroyed
- Bezos unveiled plans for firm’s first lunar lander, Blue Moon, in May this year
Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is set to become the first publicly-listed human space flight company, beating Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp will invest around $800million (£640million) for a 49 per cent stake, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The merger between Social Capital Hedosophia and Virgin Galactic was announced this morning, and should be complete by the end of this year.
Social Capital LP Chief Executive Officer Chamath Palihapitiya has been working on the deal with Branson for around a year.
Branson’s company is racing against Blue Origin, the space business of Amazon founder Bezos, and Musk’s SpaceX, to bring tourists into space.
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Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is reportedly set to become the first publicly-listed human space flight company
Virgin Galactic soared to the edge of space with a test passenger for the first time in February (pictured), nudging the company closer to its goal of suborbital flights for space tourists
Virgin Galactic soared to the edge of space with a test passenger for the first time in February, nudging the company closer to its goal of suborbital flights for space tourists.
After Branson founded the company in 2004, his ambitious timeline for taking customers into space suffered delays.
The original SpaceShipTwo crashed on a test flight in 2014, killing the co-pilot and seriously injured the pilot.
Branson has said he plans to be the first passenger on SpaceShipTwo’s first commercial flight in mid-2019.
In March, Musk’s SpaceX launched an unmanned capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
After a five-day mission on the International Space Station, the Crew Dragon successfully splash landed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Musk plans to launch SpaceX’s first manned flight to the International Space Station and back later this year – despite setbacks
In March, Musk’s SpaceX launched an unmanned capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
But the following month, on April 20, SpaceX experienced a setback when the same Crew Dragon blew up during a ground test of the vehicle’s emergency abort thrusters, designed to propel the capsule and its crew to safety from atop the rocket in the event of a launch failure.
Despite the set backs, Bob Behnken, 48, and Doug Hurley, 52 are slated for blastoff later this year from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the debut manned flight of the Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station and back.
In May, Bezos showed off a massive model of what will be the firm’s first lunar lander, dubbed Blue Moon.
At the event, he said the lander had been in development for the last three years and is on track for a 2024 crewed moon landing.
The craft will ‘enable a sustained human presence on the moon,’ the company said. Blue Origin says it could conduct the first test fire as soon as this summer.
Branson said: ‘Great progress in our test flight program means that we are on track for our beautiful spaceship to begin commercial service.
‘By embarking on this new chapter, at this advanced point in Virgin Galactic’s development, we can open space to more investors and in doing so, open space to thousands of new astronauts.
‘We are at the dawn of a new space age, with huge potential to improve and sustain life on Earth.’
In May, Bezos showed off a massive model of what will be the firm’s first lunar lander, dubbed Blue Moon
He said the lander had been in development for the last three years and is on track for a 2024 crewed moon landing
THE BILLIONAIRE SPACE RACE
Jeff Bezos in front of Blue Origin’s space capsule
Jeff Bezos’ space tourism project with Blue Origin is competing with a similar programme in development by Space X, the rocket firm founded and run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Virgin Galactic, backed by Richard Branson.
Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year.
The system consists of a pressurised crew capsule atop a reusable ‘New Shepard’ booster rocket.
The richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos is pursuing Blue Origin with vigour as he tries to launch his ‘New Glenn’ rocket into low-Earth orbit by 2020.
Whilst Bezos is yet to leave the atmosphere of Earth, despite several successful launches, Elon Musk’s SpaceX programme has already sent the Falcon Heavy rocket into space.
On February 6 2018, SpaceX sent the rocket towards the orbit of Mars, 140 million miles away.
On board was a red Tesla roadster that belonged to Musk himself.
Elon Musk with his Dragon Crew capsule
SpaceX have won several multi-million dollar contracts from Nasa as the space agency hopes to use the rockets as a fast-track for its colonisation of the red planet.
It has successfully sent a Dragon capsule to the ISS and undocked without a hitch.
NASA has already selected two astronauts who will be on-board the first manned Dragon mission.
Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic successfully conducted two test flight of the Virgin Galactic’s Unity spaceplane.
The first took place in December 2018 and the latest took place on February 22nd.
The flight accelerated to over 2,000 miles per hour (Mach 2.7).
More than 600 affluent customers to date, including celebrities Brad Pitt and Katy Perry, have reserved a $250,000 (£200,000) seat on one of Virgin’s space trips,
The billionaire mogul also said he expects Elon Musk to win the race to Mars with his private rocket firm SpaceX.
Richard Branson with the Virgin Galactic craft
SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots. Each passenger gets the same seating position with two large windows – one to the side and one overhead.
The space ship is 60ft long with a 90inch diameter cabin allowing maximum room for the astronauts to float in zero gravity.
It climbs to 50,000ft before the rocket engine ignites. SpaceShipTwo separates from its carrier craft, White Knight II, once it’s passed the 50-mile mark.
Passengers become ‘astronauts’ when they reach the Karman line, the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere.
The spaceship will then make a sub-orbital journey with approximately six minutes of weightlessness, with the entire flight lasting approximately 1.5 hours.
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