Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company develops commercial spacecraft and provides suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic's maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010, but the date was delayed for several years, and then delayed again, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
SpaceShipOne landing
White Knight Two in the air
White Knight Two on the ground
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate. In the 1970s, he co-founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.
Branson in 2015
The Manor Studio, Richard Branson's recording studio in the manor house at the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire
Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340 approaching London Heathrow in June 2015
Virgin Trains West Coast Class 390 Pendolino at Lichfield in August 2011