Virgin Galactic eyes space test next year

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, March 5 (UPI) -- Britain's Virgin Galactic is prepared to launch test flights into space next year and start commercial space flights by 2015, the company's president said.

The Virgin Group Ltd.'s commercial spaceline -- an offshoot of billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic Airways -- is fully funded, now that it sold a 32 percent stake for $280 million to Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investments in July 2009, Will Whitehorn told reporters on the sidelines of a space conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Some 330 people, including 20 from the Gulf Arab region, put down deposits adding up to almost $50 million to be among Virgin Galactic's first space passengers, Whitehorn said.

Tickets are priced at $200,000.

Six commercial spaceships made by Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Scaled Composites LLC, would take passengers from California high enough into space to achieve weightlessness and see the earth's curvature against space's black backdrop, the company says.

Whitehorn said Virgin Galactic might make Abu Dhabi a hub for commercial space flights, but he didn't say when, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Aabar is 71.23 percent controlled by the government-owned International Petroleum Investment Co., which is seeking to diversify away from oil. Abu Dhabi is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' third-largest oil producer.