The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) revealed on Monday, August 1, that it has granted space tourism company Virgin Galactic an operating license for the SpaceShipTwo craft, which is designed for space tourism.
In a statement, Virgin Galactic said that the license will eventually pave way for commercial flights that will bring tourists to space.
The granting of the license renewed the progress made by Virgin Galactic after it faced setbacks when a SpaceShipTwo spacecraft accidentally crashed during a test flight in October 2014, killing one pilot and causing severe injuries to the other.
Following the fatal incident, several people, who initially wanted to become the world's first space tourists, backed out over safety issues. The accident also raised concerns over the future of space tourism.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, however, refused to let the incident stop his company from making its vision to pioneer space tourism a reality. The billionaire acknowledged that spaceflight is hard but said that it is worth it.
Earlier this year, the company unveiled an updated version of SpaceShipTwo called VSS Unity, which is said to have features that would prevent the same mistake that led to the fatal 2014 crash from happening again. On Monday, the spacecraft went through the first of many tests that are needed before Virgin Galactic can finally bring passengers to space.
"The license review process consists of an in-depth review of the vehicles system design, safety analysis and flight trajectory analysis, culminating in FAA-AST approval," Virgin Galactic said in a statement.
Virgin Galactic has not yet officially made an announcement on when the new spacecraft will make its maiden test flight. Chief executive officer George Whitesides, however, said earlier this year that the company look forward to sending satellites, if not people, into space by next year.
Traveling to space comes with a hefty price, but about 700 people have already purchased their tickets to become the first tourists to visit the low Earth orbit. Among these hopeful space tourists include scientist Stephen Hawking and celebrities Katy Perry, and Brad Pitt.
Virgin Galactic senior vice president of operations Mike Moses said that the granting of the operator license by the FAA as well as Unity's first taxi test are important milestones for the company.
"While we still have much work ahead to fully test this spaceship in flight, I am confident that our world-class team is up to the challenge," Moses said.
