Independent TV
Showing now | News
![Virgin Galactic's first space tourism flight lands safely back to Earth](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/HQuOjJU5/poster.jpg?width=720)
01:24
Watch: Virgin Galactic’s first space tourism flight returns safely to earth
Virgin Galactic has launched its first space tourism flight, blasting a former Olympian from Newcastle and a mother-daughter duo above the Earth.
The flight carried the three civilian passengers to the edge of space, before returning to Spaceport America in New Mexico.
The passengers experienced a brief period of weightlessness as the craft reached 85km above the earth.
The passengers - 46-year-old Keisha Schahaff, her 18-year-old daughter Anastatia Mayers and 80-year-old Olympian Jon Goodwin - are now officially astronauts.
This launch follows the company’s inaugural commercial trip earlier this summer, when three Italian citizens were taken into low orbit for scientific research experiments.
Up next
![Gérard Mestrallet on the challenges of bringing infrastructure to the region of AlUla](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/EWX1dt85/poster.jpg?width=320)
01:51
Gérard Mestrallet on the challenges of bringing infrastructure to the region of AlUla
![Sir George Iacobescu, chairman of the Canary Wharf Group on the investment into the historic region of AlUla](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/LSvQ5SQ1/poster.jpg?width=320)
02:07
Sir George Iacobescu, chairman of the Canary Wharf Group on the investment into the historic region of AlUla
![Oliver Ripley of sustainable hotel group Habitas talks about how AlUla challenged his preconceptions of Saudi Arabia](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ADCX8FkA/poster.jpg?width=320)
02:00
Oliver Ripley of sustainable hotel group Habitas talks about how AlUla challenged his preconceptions of Saudi Arabia
![Thomas Kaplan of wild cat conservation charity Panthera on the mission to save the Arabian Leopard](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/mJh5g24R/poster.jpg?width=320)
02:09