Washington-Sana
Virgin Galactic, owned by British billionaire Richard Branson, announced the postponement of the launch date for the first fully manned test flight into space, which was scheduled to launch today, due to weather conditions.
The company said in a tweet via its Twitter account, "The first space tourism trip, which was scheduled for today, will be postponed until tomorrow due to the weather."
This is the first fully manned test flight to the edge of space and the flight will take about 90 minutes.
Branson had first announced his intention to build a space plane in 2004, while he expected to provide a tourist flight by 2007, but the company faced technical difficulties that led to delaying the launch of the project.
The spacecraft that will carry Branson and three employees of his company, as well as two pilots from Spaceport America, will take off from the space base that was set up in the New Mexico desert, less than 100 kilometers north of Las Cruces.
The flight will head into outer space to reach an altitude of 100 km and will take only 11 minutes before the participants return to Earth.