Virgin Galactic

A mother ship without its spaceplane. This mother ship is White Knight Two. It was made by Scaled Composites (a company)

Looking from underneath: a mother ship and its spaceplane (the middle fuselage).

Virgin Galactic is a spaceflight company founded by the English billionaire Richard Branson in 2004.

Flights

On 11 July 2021, Richard Branson and three employees were passengers on a flight, up to an altitude of 86 km (53 mi); the flight had two pilots.^[3] However, the rocket plane Unity flew outside restricted airspace;^[4]^[5] That happened for 1 minute and 41 seconds. The Federal Aviation Administration allowed [any] SpaceShipTwo rocket plane to fly again [from] September 2021, after deciding to expand (or make larger) the restricted airspace around the vehicle's flight range.^[6]

In May 2023, the company's fifth spaceflight happened.
In June 2023, the rocket plane Unity was in space for 13:50 minutes. It came to a distance from Earth of 85 km (≈52 mi), and top speed was Mach 2.88. Galactic 01 is the name of the flight.
In August 2023, the rocket plane Eve was in space. It came to a distance from Earth of 88 km (≈55 mi). Galactic 02 is the name of the flight. Six people were onboard: the chief, the pilot, 3 tourists and an instructor for those space tourists.^[7]

The spaceplane Unity is rocket-powered. It is a SpaceShipTwo type spaceplane. In 2021, it came to an altitude of 86 km (≈53 mi), with people inside.^[3]

a SpaceShip III (SS3 or SS III) was shown in March 2021, but the first one - the VSS Imagine - has not flown (as of Spring 2022).^[8] When in operation, it can do space tourism; It will not do point-to-point transportation (such as flying from London to Sydney).

the Delta spaceplanes are supposed to be ready in 2025, according to the company in July 2022; The next generation of mothership should also be ready by 2025.^[9] The Delta spaceplanes will do the same things as a SpaceShip III.^[10]

Mother ship (Cosmic Girl) carrying a LauncherOne launch vehicle under its wing

Opel RAK.1, world's first public flight of a rocket-powered aircraft on September 30, 1929, piloted by Fritz von Opel. The RAK1 was designed by Julius Hatry and equipped with Friedrich Wilhelm Sander's rockets, as part of the Opel RAK program.
White Knight Two on the ground
Astronaut Chris Hadfield just gave Richard Branson his astronaut wings.jpg

Virgin Galactic awards its first sets of corporate astronaut wings after Unity 22