Summary

  • Keisha Schahaff and Ana Mayers have become the first mother-daughter duo to travel to the edge of space, travelling on a Virgin Galactic rocket plane

  • In a press conference afterwards, they've spoken of the "amazing" experience of seeing Earth from an altitude of around 85km (52 miles)

  • Keisha, from Antigua, won the prize while flying to the UK, where her daughter is studying

  • They were joined on board by Jon Goodwin, 80, a British former Olympic canoeist

  • Goodwin, who has Parkinson's, bought his ticket for space for $250,000 back in 2005

  • At the peak of their flight, the group were able to see the curvature of the Earth and the black of space

Live Reporting

Edited by James FitzGerald

  1. Where are they flying and how long will it take?

    The launch window opens at 08:30 local time (15:30 BST) for the VSS Unity to take off from from New Mexico in the US.

    The rocket will be carried on the first stage of its journey on board a carrier plane, known as Eve.

    It will then aim to ignite its engine and travel to an altitude of 279,000ft (85km). This is considered to be "space" by US government agencies.

    Those on board will briefly experience weightlessness at the peak of their trip - which is estimated to last about 90 minutes.

    Virgin Galactic's second commercial flight (its first for tourists) will then glide back to base at Spaceport America.

    A BBC graphic shows the flight plan of Virgin Galactic's Unity rocket. It is scheduled to take off from Spaceport America in New Mexico, after which the Eve carrier plan and the Unity rocket ship will separate, which will be followed by a 90-second climb at close to 4,000 km/h, with the craft then reaching the edge of space at just under 100km, and then experiencing zero gravity, before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere with folded tailbooms, and then going into an unpowered glide before returning to the ground.

  2. Virgin Galactic: A short history

    Sir Richard Branson poses with a model of a Virgin spacecraft in 2004.PA Media

    Back in 2004, Sir Richard thought his spaceliner service could start in 2007.

    Virgin Galactic was founded in 2004 to exploit the technology built into SpaceShipOne. This was a small, experimental, privately-funded rocket plane that won a $10m (then £5.6m) prize for flying to space twice within two weeks.

    Back then, company founder Sir Richard Branson thought he could introduce a passenger spaceliner based on the SpaceShipOne concept by 2007.

    But the engineering challenges were far greater than had been anticipated. The project very nearly folded when the first prototype vehicle - called Enterprise - broke up during a test ascent in 2014, killing one of the two pilots on board.

    It wasn't until December 2018 Virgin Galactic got the successor, Unity, above 80km (50 miles) - the altitude regarded as "outer space" by some organisations.

    Sir Richard himself finally took up a seat aboard the plane in July 2021 for a flight experience he described as "extraordinary".

  3. The countdown is on

    James FitzGerald
    Live reporter

    Hello and welcome. Today, we await a historic space flight by space-tourism company Virgin Galactic - the launch window for which opens at 08:30 local time (15:30 BST).

    This won’t be the first time the firm has taken people to the edge of space (a group of Italian researchers made that same trip in June), but it does represent the first trip for tourists.

    On board will be an 80-year-old former Olympic athlete, plus two women from Antigua who won a competition and are set to become the first mother-daughter duo to make such a trip.

    Our reporters Jonathan Amos, Georgina Rannard are following closely - and Sophie Long is at the launch site in New Mexico. Also involved here in London with me is Thomas Mackintosh.

    You’ll be able to watch the flight live on this page, closer to the time.

    Buckle up. Five… four… three… two… one…