Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (NYSE:SPCE) confirmed its first commercial flight to the edge of space will take place on Thursday at 9am local time from its New Mexico base (11am US eastern time, 4pm in the UK).
The space tourism company, which said it will live-stream the flight on its website, will be carrying a scientific research mission crewed by the Italian Airforce and National Research Council of Italy.
It is calling the flight Space Mission 'Galactic 01’.
The second commercial mission is expected in "early August" and then with monthly commercial flights thereafter.
Virgin Galactic, which was co-founded by Sir Richard Branson, has sold roughly 800 tickets for commercial flights at prices starting at US$450,000 apiece.
Paying astronauts will be flown to a height of almost 90 kilometres above the earth’s surface in its Unity rocket, which initially takes off under the wing of its VMS Eve mothership before detaching and firing its own rockets to reach its suborbital altitude.