WATCH| Richard Branson's spaceflight touches down after successful trip to space

Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson took off for space aboard the Virgin Galactic vessel, which is the company's first fully-crewed spaceflight.

The carrier plane took off from Spaceport, New Mexico at around 8:40 am Mountain Time (1440 GMT) and will ascend for around an hour to an altitude of 50,000 feet (15 kilometers).

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Calling it an 'experience of a lifetime', Richard Branson said through a live feed, "Congratulations to all our wonderful team at Virgin Galactic for 17 years of hard hard work to get us this far."

After that, the mothership will drop the rocket-powered spaceplane, VSS Unity. This spaceplane will ignite its engine and begin ascending at Mac 3 beyond 50 miles of altitude.

As the altitude is achieved, the two pilots will cut off the engine for a few minutes and let the four other passengers unbuckle and experience being weightless. They will also be able to observe the Earth’s curvature through the 17 windows, at this point.

After few minutes of heave-like feeling, the pilots will set the course of the ship to re-enter the atmosphere.

Branson, an entrepreneur known for his range of businesses and his adventurer spirit, said, "As a child, I wanted to go to space". He had been working on his dream since 2004 when he founded Virgin Galactic. However, he feared an end to that dream when an internal issue caused the death of a pilot of a test flight.

In this flight, he is being accompanied by Dave Mackay, chief pilot, Michael Masucci, pilot, Sirisha Bandla, vice-president of government affairs and research operations, Colin Bennett, lead operations engineer, and Beth Moses, chief astronaut instructor.

Have a look |Richard Branson all set for Virgin Galactic spaceflight

After this initial flight, Virgin Galactic is planning two more such flights before starting 'spaceflights' on a regular basis from early 2022. Branson aims to conduct at least 400 flights to space every year. For his spacious programme, nearly 600 tickets have already been sold to people from 60 different countries. These tickets, ranging from $200,000 to $250,000 have been sold to several Hollywood celebrities too, who have not been named yet.

With a belief of 'space belongs to us all', Branson has promised that "when we return, I will announce something very exciting to give more people the chance to become an astronaut."

Branson's flight to space comes a little beforeJeff Bezos, the ex-Amazon CEO, is set to embark on a similar trip with his brother.