Virgin Galactic Gets FAA Approval to Fly Passengers to Space; Company Shares Soar By Pablo Luna / Saturday, 26 Jun 2021 07:31PM The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved a commercial space launch license to Virgin Galactic. The approval enables the Richard Branson-founded airspace company to fly human passengers to space on a commercial basis. In a sense, this sets in motion the race between billionaires Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to be the first to fly commercial passengers to space. Virgin Galactic completed a 29-element verification and validation program, which the FAA found very satisfying before the approval was issued. On May 29, the company satisfied the regulator’s requirement in terms of the spacecraft’s flight-control systems and inertial navigation systems. The company recorded the feat when its VMS Eve and VSS Unity spacecraft reached an altitude of 55.5 miles at a top speed of Mach 3.