A Virgin Galactic spaceship carrying Richard Branson has safely touched down after soaring to the edge of space on Sunday in a voyage the British billionaire called an “experience of a lifetime”.
The VSS Unity vessel reached a peak altitude of about 85km (53 miles), beyond the boundary of space according to the United States, allowing the passengers to experience weightlessness and admire the Earth’s curvature.
“Congratulations to all our wonderful team at Virgin Galactic for 17 years of hard hard work to get us this far,” Branson said during a live feed, as the spaceship glided back to Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Touchdown occurred about 9:40am local time (15:40 GMT), about an hour after takeoff.
Sunday’s launch of the VSS Unity passenger rocket plane marked the company’s 22nd test flight of its SpaceShipTwo system and its fourth crewed mission beyond Earth’s atmosphere. It was also the first to carry a full complement of space travellers – two pilots and four “mission specialists” – Branson among them.
A week away from his 71st birthday, Branson and his crewmates walked onto the tarmac waving to a throng of onlookers before boarding the Unity rocket plane parked at the end of a taxiway. A video posted by Virgin Galactic showed Branson arriving earlier at the takeoff site on his bicycle and greeting crewmates with a hug.
Space analyst Leo Enright told Al Jazeera the flight “could not have gone any smoother” and would give “an enormous boost of public confidence” to Branson’s space enterprise.
“The next big thing maybe is an announcement that they are opening up yet again tickets sales for his spaceplane,” Enright said.
“They closed them down after the tragic loss of a vehicle and the death of a crew member back in 2014, so there is every possibility that later today Branson will announce that he’s opening it up again and it’ll be interesting to see how many tickets he is willing to sell.”
A festive gathering of space industry executives, future customers and other well-wishers were on hand to witness Sunday’s launch, which was live-streamed in a presentation hosted by late-night television comedian Stephen Colbert.
Among those present was fellow billionaire and space industry pioneer Elon Musk, who is the founder of electric carmaker Tesla Inc.
The gleaming white spaceplane was carried aloft attached to the underside of the dual-fuselage jet VMS Eve (named for Branson’s late mother) in a takeoff from Spaceport America, a state-owned facility near the aptly named town of Truth or Consequences. Virgin Galactic leases a large section of the 18,000-acre site.
Reaching its high-altitude launch point at about 46,000 feet, Unity was released from the mothership and fell away as its crew ignited the vehicle’s rocket, sending it streaking straight upward at supersonic speed to the blackness of space some 53 miles (85.9 km) high.
At the apex of the climb with the rocket shut down, the crew then experienced a few minutes of microgravity, before the spaceplane shifted into re-entry mode, and began a gliding descent to a runway back at the spaceport. The entire flight, from takeoff to landing, lasted about an hour.
“This is the highlight of the ride to get a view of the curving Earth and to spend a few minutes in weightlessness, get out of your seats, and do a roll which apparently they [did] so this is a big moment,” Alan Boyle, contributing editor at GeekWire, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s pretty thrilling and the view is fantastic, you can see … the slight curve of the Earth and the black sky of space above, and that’s what people are going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to see, and then they have to quickly get back onto their seats.. and experience a few Gs of acceleration on the way down,” Boyle added.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from Sierra County, New Mexico said the operation was carried out “flawlessly”.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson waves goodbye while heading to board the rocket plane in New Mexico on Sunday [Andres Leighton/AP Photo]
“Everything went flawlessly from the take-off of the mother ship Eve with unity strapped to its fuselage to the separation, which is always a very tricky part in this kind of an operation, technically tricky, and then the firing of the rockets … and then the plane came gliding in for a perfect landing.”
Virgin has said it plans at least two further test flights of the spaceplane in the months ahead before beginning regular commercial operation in 2022.
This is no discount travel service. But demand is apparently strong, with several hundred wealthy would-be citizen astronauts already having booked reservations, priced at about $250,000 per ticket.
The Swiss-based investment bank UBS has estimated the potential value of the space tourism market reaching $3bn annually by 2030.
Proving rocket travel safe for the public is key, given the inherent dangers of spaceflight.
TORONTO – Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported net income of US$357 million for its third quarter, down from US$364 million in the same quarter last year.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit amounted to 79 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 79 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, totalled US$2.29 billion, up from US$1.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Consolidated comparable sales were up 0.3 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Restaurant Brands says it earned 93 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 90 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Fortis Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $420 million, up from $394 million in the same quarter last year.
The electric and gas utility says the profit amounted to 85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 81 cents per share a year earlier.
Fortis says the increase was driven by rate base growth across its utilities, and strong earnings in Arizona largely reflecting new customer rates at Tucson Electric Power.
Revenue in the quarter totalled $2.77 billion, up from $2.72 billion in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Fortis says it earned 85 cents per share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per share in the third quarter of 2023.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 82 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
TORONTO – Thomson Reuters reported its third-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago as its revenue rose eight per cent.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says it earned US$301 million or 67 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The result compared with a profit of US$367 million or 80 cents US per diluted share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter totalled US$1.72 billion, up from US$1.59 billion a year earlier.
In its outlook, Thomson Reuters says it now expects organic revenue growth of 7.0 per cent for its full year, up from earlier expectations for growth of 6.5 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Thomson Reuters says it earned 80 cents US per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 82 cents US per share in the same quarter last year.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 76 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
