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"       Richard Branson&amp;#039;s spaceship has gone supersonic. The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo broke the sound barrier over the Mojave Desert in California this morning, an achievement that paves the way for the vehicle&amp;#039;s first suborbital flight tests that are scheduled for later this year. WhiteKnightTwo, the mega-jet that carries the smaller SpaceShipTwo into the atmosphere, reached an altitude of 48,000 feet before dropping the ship. SpaceShipTwo then completed a 16-second-long engine burn that carried the craft to an altitude of 55,000 feet, and to a velocity of Mach 1.2. The company&amp;#039;s goal is to carry its well-heeled passengers to 62 miles above the Earth&amp;#039;s surface, where they&amp;#039;ll get a short taste of weightlessness. This small step been a long time coming. Branson founded Virgin Galactic back in 2004, the same year that legendary spacecraft designer Burt Rutan completed the first manned private spaceflight in SpaceShipOne. Over the last nine years, Branson has collected millions from passengers willing to pony up for a ride up to suborbital space while Rutan&amp;#039;s company Scaled Composites developed the vehicle that would make it possible, SpaceShipTwo. PopMech was on site back in 2010 to see the new vehicle&amp;#039;s first (unpowered) test flight. Branson initially estimated that Virgin Galactic would begin carrying passengers in 2007. Now that delays and disasters during flight testing have shown that date to be wildly overoptimistic, he&amp;#039;s not putting a date on the first flight. However, Virgin hopes to reach suborbital space in a flight test near the end of the year. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a8841/first-powered-flight-for-richard-bransons-spaceshiptwo-15408971/>