Virgin Galactic at edge of space MAPPED: Where is Virgin Galactic spaceship now?

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo finally reached space after months of testing. The spaceship flew to an incredible altitude of 271,268 feet (82682 metres). The tourism spaceship took of from California’s Mojave Desert on Thursday, December 13 and reached what Virgin considered the “boundary of space”.

Where is the Virgin Galactic space ship now?

After SpaceShipTwo reached the edge of space, it only stayed there for a brief moment, before beginning its gliding descent.

Only minutes after the spaceship took off, the Virgin Galactic space ship safely returned to the runway in the Mojave Desert.

And although the stay in space was not long, it was enough to verify the spaceship could handle life support and counteract vibration.

The mission also verified as conduct for NASA-backed scientific experiments studying the effects of microgravity and devices that could handle bringing humans to space.

Mission official Enrico Palermo said: “We made it to space!”

According to Virgin Galactic, SpaceShipTwo’s motor burned for 60 seconds, going at 2.9 times faster than the speed of sound.

The spaceflight carried two pilots and one mannequin named Annie as a stand-in passenger.

In addition, four research experiments from NASA were onboard.

Sir Richard said of the successful trip: “Today we have shown Virgin Galactic can open space to the world”

He is currently in a race with Tesla owner Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to send the first fee-paying passengers into space.

Sir Richard founded the commercial spaceflight company in 2004.

And in 2008 Virgin Galactic promised sub-orbital spaceship trips for tourists would happen within 18 months.

Since the claim was made, the company has regularly gone back on its promises.

But after Thursday’s success Virgin Galactic could be finding themselves ahead of their competitors.

However, the space trip did not breach the 100km Karman Line, which is what many organisations use to determine where space begins.

Instead, SpaceShipTwo ventured to an altitude 80km above Earth, which is the height the US government use to issue awards to astronauts who have travelled to space.