Watch live: British billionaire Richard Branson to fly into space today

British billionaire Richard Branson plans to fly to space on a spaceplane built by his own space exploration company-Virgin Galactic (SPCE) on Sunday morning, July 11.

The departure of the company’s VSS Unity spaceship is planned sometime after 7:30 a.m. PT, 8:30 a.m. MT, 10:30 a.m. ET from the state’s private Spaceport America.

The launch is to begin with a plane, the VMS Eve, taking off from the spaceport’s runway with the spaceship attached to its underside. The plan calls for releasing the spaceship about 9 miles high about 50 minutes after takeoff. It would then ignite a rocket engine to carry it 50 miles high and land about 1 hour and 15 minutes after takeoff.