 ticket, whereas the mother and daughter won won their places in a prize draw. 3:09PM Virgin Galactic's first space tourism flight is set to take off at 4pm (BST) from New Mexico, US. 3:05PM Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Virgin Galactic tourist space flight launch. We expect to have live footage of the launch so make sure to check back for the latest.){kind=link}
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Virgin Galactic’s first space tourism flight is set to take off this afternoon.
Among the three passengers onboard the VSS Unity is 80-year-old British former Olympian Jon Goodwin.
The flight is scheduled to take off at around 4pm BST (11am EST) from New Mexico, US, for the 90-minute trip.
Mr Goodwin, from Newcastle under Lyme, secured his seat 18 years ago after buying a $250,000 (£194,500) ticket for the expedition.