written by Hannah Dowling | July 12, 2021 Virgin Australia co-founder Sir Richard Branson has officially completed his mission to become the first of the billionaires currently investing in space tourism technologies to reach space aboard his own company’s rocket. Sir Richard blasted off to the edge of space on his Virgin Galactic spaceplane on Sunday, in the company’s 22nd successful spaceflight, and fourth crewed flight to space. Advertisement Advertisement On his inaugural spaceflight, Sir Richard joined a full crew of two pilots and three mission specialists aboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo dubbed VSS Unity – a six-passenger, two-pilot craft that is designed to make brief jaunts to suborbital space.