When is Richard Branson going into space and how far is he travelling?
The 12 - our new FREE email with all the news you need Invalid Email Something went wrong, please try again later. I'M IN Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice  Richard Bransons planned space flight on Sunday of this week will mark the culmination of a 17-year dream for the 70-year-old British entrepreneur. The London-born businessman said hes always been a dreamer, and his mother  who passed away from Covid-19 in January  taught him to reach for the stars. Branson has certainly done that to date  with the billionaire setting him his first company, Virgin Records, aged just 20-years-old and hasnt looked back since. Read more:Home Bargains shares snap of summer candles but shoppers are all going nuts for one scent  Asked how his family reacted to the news that he would join Sunday's space flight, the entrepreneur said his children were excited, but suggested his wife, Joan, was more wary while still remaining supportive. Heres everything we know about Richard Bransons first foray into space aboard the VSS Unity rocket plane. Branson will travel into space on a Virgin Galactic test flight this week on Sunday, July 11. He will make the journey along with five others  two pilots and three mission specialists as they travel to the edge of space. "I've been looking forward to this for 17 years," Branson said of his planned first flight into space as the company was first founded in 2004  and he had planned to make his first space flight as early as 2009 but the difficulties of undertaking this mission inevitably led to setbacks. Most famously one pilot died and another was seriously injured during a test flight over the Mojave Desert. The launch of Virgin Galactics VSS Unity rocket over the Mojave Desert in California will mark the company's fourth crew-tested mission ahead of planned commercial flights as early as 2022. Richard Branson along with his five crew will be launched on the VSS Unity rocket at an altitude of around 50,000 feet from a Virgin Galactic carrier plane  where they will reach the boundary of space and experience weightlessness for about 4 minutes before beginning their descent to Earth. By joining the scheduled space flight on Sunday, July 11, Branson has positioned himself to beat rival Jeff Bezos into the final frontier by just nine days. Bezos is due to travel into space himself on Tuesday, July 20, onboard the New Shepard spacecraft made by his own private rocket company Blue Origin  but Branson has denied that the pair are in any sort of competition, saying: "I just wish him and people going up with him all the very best.