Update<\/strong>: The launch was a success start to finish, and the vessel has returned safely to the ground. The headline and images have been updated to reflect this; original story follows.<\/p>\n

Virgin Galactic is gearing up to launch its commercial space tourism service for the first time this morning, a long-awaited debut that puts much on the line for the company.<\/p>\n

The 90-minute mission, called Galactic 01, will commence sometime after 9:00 AM local time, with the company\u2019s aircraft taking off from Spaceport America in New Mexico. The mission is part of a contract Virgin signed back in 2019 to carry three Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy (CRN) officials to suborbital space.<\/p>\n

Virgin\u2019s flight system is different from that of its competitor, Blue Origin, which uses a vertical rocket to launch a capsule to suborbital space. Instead, Virgin\u2019s VSS Unity spacecraft reaches the lower bounds of space by hitching a ride on a customized aircraft called VMS Eve \u2014 what Virgin often refers to as the \u201cmothership.\u201d Once VMS Eve reaches an altitude around 50,000 feet, Unity fires up its engine and detaches from the plane.<\/p>\n

Should today\u2019s mission be successful, Virgin plans to conduct a second commercial flight in August, followed by monthly missions after that. The company reportedly has a backlog of 800 paying customers, the majority of which paid $250,000 or less for a ticket, so such a cadence isn\u2019t at all surprising given demand.<\/p>\n

But such ambitions depend upon the outcome of this first mission, and the ability of the company to prove that its suborbital spaceplane is indeed a worthy vessel for customers. Notably, even as the outcome of this mission remains to be seen, Virgin has been able to rally investors \u2014 the company announced earlier this week that it had raised $300 million via a common stock offering, with plans to raise another $400 million through the same avenue.<\/p>\n