TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, New Mexico—A three-man crew from Italy soared more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) above the New Mexico desert on Thursday aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket plane, the company’s first flight of paying customers to the edge of space since British billionaire Richard Branson founded the venture in 2004.
The two Italian air force officers and an aerospace engineer from the National Research Council of Italy made the brief suborbital ride with three Virgin Galactic crew members, two of whom piloted the vehicle, VSS Unity, once it was launched at high altitude from the belly of its twin-fuselage carrier plane.
