The American company Virgin Galactic, which plans to organize tourist suborbital space flights, has started selling tickets for its SpaceShipTwo spaceplane. The price of one seat starts from $450 thousand. This is stated in the company's statement published on Thursday, August 5.
The article deals with three purchase options for those who want to buy tickets — in addition to one seat, the company offers a family package or the possibility of a full flight purchase.
It is noted that the next flight of the spaceplane is scheduled for the end of September, this mission is paid for by the Italian Air Force.
The announcement of the ticket sale followed the successful flight of the founder of the Virgin Group corporation, Richard Branson, and a number of other specialists. This mission, dubbed Unity 22, was a key stage of testing before Virgin Galactic will start space tourism at the end of 2022.
The Unity rocket plane was launched from the spaceport in New Mexico. In addition to Branson, pilots Dave McKay and Michael Masucci, as well as company astronauts, took part in the flight. In total, the flight lasted about an hour.
On June 25, it was reported that Virgin Galactic received approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to launch customers into suborbital flights from New Mexico at a price of $250 thousand per seat.