Richard Branson launched into space on the VSS Unity rocket plane

Billionaire Richard Branson went on a suborbital flight aboard his own VSS Unity rocket plane. Together with him, two pilots and three passengers of the ship went to the edge of space.

VSS Unity was launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico using a twin-body VMS Eve carrier aircraft. The rocket plane will rise to a height of 15-20 kilometers, then detach from the carrier aircraft, turn on its own rocket engine and reach a height of over 80 kilometers. Crew members will be in zero gravity for about four minutes.

Then the pilots will begin their descent, and the ship will land in glider mode (similar to American shuttles) at Port America.

This is how Richard Branson arrived at the spaceport.

• Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic developed the VSS Unity rocket plane for tourist suborbital flights. Its competitor is billionaire Jeff Bezos, whose company Blue Origin created a reusable suborbital rocket and a reusable spacecraft for the same purpose. Bezos is set to go into space on July 20th.