Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Galactic, will fly into space aboard his company's VSS Unity rocketplane on July 11 for an up-and-down test flight, beating Amazon-founder and rival Jeff Bezos into sub-orbital space by nine days.
Along with wealthy space tourists, both companies expect to fly researchers and experiments from government agencies and companies developing or testing space technology.
Neither company has said how much it plans to charge for a ride to space, but tickets are expected to cost between $250,000 and $500,000.
Even so, some 600 enthusiasts have put down deposits with Virgin for flights once commercial operations begin in 2022.
"I truly believe that space belongs to all of us," Branson said in a statement Thursday.
Branson purchased rights to the design and scaled it up to carry a crew of six.
The mishap was blamed on pilot error, and changes were made to prevent any chance of a recurrence. »