Virgin Galactic has launched the final design of the SpaceShipTwo, its passenger carrying rocket spaceliner. The image above shows SpaceShipTwo being carried by White Kinight Two, the plane which will carry it upwards before it is launched into space.

Passengers paying $200,000 a head will be taken to an altitude of 110km where they will be able to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. SpaceShipTwo will carry two pilot astronauts and six passengers, and launch from the company’s SpacePort America in New Mexico. Each journey will last around two and a half hours. So far, Virgin Galactic says, more than 200 people have booked and 85,000 have registered their interest.

White Knight Two is near completion and is expected to begin testing later this year, while SpaceShipTwo is about 60% complete.

Speaking at the launch event in the American Museum of Natural History, Virgin boss, Sir Richard Branson said “I think it’s very important that we make a genuine commercial success of this project. If we do, I believe we’ll unlock a wall of private sector money into both space launch systems and space technology. This could rival the scale of investment in the mobile phone and internet technologies after they were unlocked from their military origins and thrown open to the private sector.”

More on the BBC and some excellent coverage at Wired

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