Virgin Galactic will develop the programme of tourist flights into space

the Head of Virgin Galactic Holdings billionaire Richard Branson announced that his company signed with the National Aeronautics and space administration (NASA) agreement on the development of programs to promote private flights to the International space station. On the news shares of the company rose more than 14%.

under the agreement with the Space center Lyndon B. Johnson, Virgin Galactic will determine the organization which will provide private flight, to develop training programs, to solve transport issues on the ISS and on Earth.

Earlier, the head of NASA, James Breidenstein announced on the social network Twitter that the Agency will be harnessed innovative American commercial company for development of the program.

In November last year Virgin Galactic announced plans to begin regular tourist suborbital flights in the mid-2020 and become a profitable company by 2021.

In suborbital flight, the camera is flying along the trajectory that do not involve the orbit. Currently, a few companies in the world, including American, Virgin Galactic, are developing spaceships for suborbital tourist flights.

In may 2020, Virgin Galactic conducted the first flight tests of the suborbital spaceship, the VSS Unity. This unit was the second of a series of SpaceShipTwo spaceplane designed for suborbital tourist flights.

Unity the way to carry up to six passengers, which during the flight can see the Ground from a height of 100 km and experience the state of weightlessness for several minutes. For this fun space tourist will have to pay about 250 thousand dollars. According to the company, the Deposit for participation in flight made more than 600 people.