Virgin Galactic Rocket Plane back on Earth after Richard Branson, crew reach space

The Virgin Galactic rocket plane carrying company founder/billionaire Richard Branson and his crew returned back to Earth after it launched into space Sunday morning, Newsweek reports.

For the first time, the rocket plan, called the Unity 22 mission, (marking the 22nd test flight for the VSS Unity spaceplane) carried a full crew of two pilots and four mission specialists, including Branson.

Weather issues on Sunday had earlier prompted a slight delay from its originally scheduled launch time of 9 a.m. ET until around 10:40 am.

Along with Branson, the crew included Sirisha Bandla, vice president of government affairs and research operations at Virgin Galactic; Colin Bennett, lead operations engineer; Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic; and Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci, the primary pilots.

As ABC News reported, the crew reached an altitude of 46,000 feet over the New Mexico desert. Then the VSS Unity spaceplane detached itself from VMS Eve and headed off into space. The plane reportedly reached mach 3 at an altitude of weightlessness. At the top of the arc, crew members were able to see the darkness of space, along with the curve of Earth from the rocket plane's windows.