Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate. In the 1970s,he co-founded the Virgin Group,which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.
Virgin Trains (VT) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group,a joint venture between Virgin Group and Stagecoach,which operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 9 March 1997 to 7 December 2019. The franchise covered long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London,the West Midlands,North West England,North Wales and southern Scotland,consequently connecting six of the UK's largest cities:London,Birmingham,Manchester,Liverpool,Glasgow and Edinburgh,which have a combined metropolitan population of over 18 million. Virgin Trains had around 3,400 employees in 2015.
Edinburgh Napier University is a public university in Edinburgh,Scotland. Napier Technical College,the predecessor of the university,was founded in 1964,taking its name from 16th-century Scottish mathematician and philosopher John Napier. The technical college was inaugurated as a university in 1992 by Lord Douglas-Hamilton,becoming Napier University. In 2009,the university was renamed Edinburgh Napier University.
Virgin Galactic Holdings,Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California,and operates from New Mexico. The company develops commercial spacecraft and provides suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic's maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010,but the date was delayed for several years,and then delayed again,primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
VSS Enterprise was the first SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spaceplane,built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. As of 2004,it was planned to be the first of five commercial suborbital SS2 spacecraft planned by Virgin Galactic. It was also the first ship of the Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo class,based on upscaling the design of record-breaking SpaceShipOne.
The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company,a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic.
The Scaled Composites Model 348 White Knight Two (WK2) is a quadjet cargo aircraft that is used to lift the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft to release altitude. It was developed by Scaled Composites from 2007 to 2010 as the first stage of Tier 1b,a two-stage to suborbital-space crewed launch system. WK2 is based on the successful mothership to SpaceShipOne,White Knight,which itself is based on Proteus.
The Spaceship Company (TSC) is a British/American spacecraft manufacturing company that was founded by Burt Rutan and Richard Branson in mid-2005 and was jointly owned by Virgin Group (70%) and Scaled Composites (30%) until 2012 when Virgin Galactic became the sole owner. TSC was formed to own the technology created by Scaled for Virgin Galactic's Virgin SpaceShip program. This includes developments on the care-free reentry system and cantilevered-hybrid rocket motor,licensed from Paul Allen and Burt Rutan's Mojave Aerospace. The company is manufacturing Virgin Galactic's spacecraft and will sell spacecraft to other buyers. The suborbital launch system offered will include the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft and the White Knight Two carrier aircraft.
SpaceShip III is an upcoming class of spaceplanes by Virgin Galactic to follow SpaceShipTwo. It was first teased on the Virgin Galactic Twitter account on 25 February 2021 announcing the rollout of the first SpaceShip III plane on 30 March 2021.
This is a list of Richard Branson's business ventures from the 1960s to today.
George Thomas Whitesides is an American businessman and public official. He was CSO and long time CEO of Virgin Galactic,a firm developing commercial space vehicles at the Mojave Air and Space Port. He still serves as a member of the Virgin Galactic Advisory Board. Whitesides was previously Chief of Staff of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Administrator Charles Bolden,a position to which he was named after serving on the NASA transition team for the incoming Obama administration. On February 22,2023,he announced his candidacy for California's 27th congressional district in the 2024 election.
Scott Jon Freidheim is an American businessman. He is the managing partner of Freidheim Capital.
VSSUnity,previously referred to as VSS Voyager,is a SpaceShipTwo-class suborbital rocket-powered crewed spaceplane. It is the second SpaceShipTwo to be built and is part of the Virgin Galactic fleet. It first reached space as defined by the United States on 13 December 2018,on the VP-03 mission.
VMS Eve is a carrier mothership for Virgin Galactic and launch platform for SpaceShipTwo-based Virgin SpaceShips.
The VSS Enterprise crash occurred on October 31,2014,when the VSS Enterprise,a SpaceShipTwo experimental spaceflight test vehicle operated by Virgin Galactic,suffered a catastrophic in-flight breakup during a test flight and crashed in the Mojave Desert near Cantil,California. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed and pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured.
Virgin Orbit was a company within the Virgin Group that provided launch services for small satellites. The company was formed in 2017 as a spin-off of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism venture to develop and market the LauncherOne rocket,which had previously been a project under Virgin Galactic. LauncherOne was a two-stage launch vehicle,air-launched from a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft,designed to deliver 300 kg of payload to low Earth orbit.
Stuart O. Witt is the Founder and Owner of S.O. Witt &Associates,LLC. Witt is the former CEO of Mojave Air and Space Port and a member of the National Space Council Users Advisory Group.
Mark P. "Forger" Stucky is an American test pilot and commercial astronaut. In these roles,he was an employee of Virgin Galactic,a private spaceflight company which is developing sub-orbital space tourism flights.
Enrico Palermo is an Australian mechanical engineer,businessman and the Head of the Australian Space Agency. He was the former President of The Spaceship Company,which develops and manufactures spaceplanes for Virgin Galactic,and the former Chief Operating Officer at Virgin Galactic,whose VSS Unity is undergoing flight trials to become the world’s first passenger spaceplane.
Virgin Galactic Unity 22 was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS Unity which launched on 11 July 2021. The crew consisted of pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci as well as passengers Sirisha Bandla,Colin Bennett,Beth Moses,and Richard Branson.
