Proactive Investors - Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (NYSE:SPCE) has set a date for its first commercial space tourism flight for the last week of June.
The flight window for what it is calling Space Mission 'Galactic 01’ is 27-30 June.
All the passengers on the first flight will be members of the Italian Air Force on a research mission.
After that, the space tourism company co-founded by Sir Richard Branson, expects to follow with a second flight in "early August" and then with monthly commercial flights thereafter.
Around 800 tickets have already been sold for commercial flights at prices starting at US$450,000 apiece, with these paying astronauts being flown to a height of almost 90 kilometres above the earth’s surface.
Virgin Galactic's Unity rocket is carried under the wing of its VMS Eve mothership before detaching and firing its own rockets to reach its suborbital altitude, where space tourists will enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness before the rocket heads back to land at the company's New Mexico base.
Each flight is expected to generate upwards of US$2.7mln for the company.
Last month Virgin Galactic ticked the final box to begin commercial flights by completing its final first successful near-space flight in two years.