How to Watch Virgin Galactic Launch Richard Branson to Space on Sunday

As billionaire Richard Branson prepares to launch into the stratosphere on Sunday, Virgin Galactic is pulling out all of the stops to make its founder’s first flight a spectacle price tuning into.

The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert is hosting a livestream of the occasion, and singer-songwriter Khalid announced he’ll be debuting a brand new single reside on stage after the spaceplane’s touchdown. Branson has additionally teased plans to “announce something very exciting to give more people the chance to become astronauts” as soon as he comes again right down to Earth.

The livestream will start at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday on Virgin Galactic’s Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The firm’s web site can be working a countdown to launch.

Branson will be part of three crew members and two pilots on Virgin Galactic’s rocket-powered spaceplane, the VSS Unity, for its first totally crewed flight check to the sting of house on Sunday. If every little thing goes easily, the flight is predicted to final about 90 minutes primarily based on earlier checks, each launching and touchdown at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

This mission marks the VSS Unity’s twenty second check flight and Virgin Galactic’s fourth crewed mission past Earth’s ambiance, in accordance with a company announcement. More importantly, although, it should give Branson bragging rights for beating his rival Jeff Bezos to house. The billionaire Amazon founder is scheduled to make the journey aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket on July 20.

It’s price noting that Bezos first introduced these plans again in June. Branson was initially scheduled to journey to house on a later flight, however final week he declared the launch window had been moved as much as July 11, simply 9 days forward of Bezos. Of course, the 2 spaceflights are fully unrelated, Branson advised the Washington Post, calling it only a “wonderful coincidence that we’re going up in the same month.”

Part of me hopes that with Branson making it to house this weekend, it should lastly put this thinly veiled dick-measuring contest to relaxation. But then I keep in mind that this launch is simply the primary of many milestones within the so-called billionaire space race to stake out a declare within the house tourism business. Yippee…