Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic reports reaching space for the third time

On Saturday, Virgin Galactic said on Twitter that a pair of its pilots, C.J. Sturckow and Dave Mackay, fired the engine of the space plane known as SpaceShipTwo Unity, pointed the nose toward the skies over New Mexico and roared to a height of 55 miles, past the threshold at which the Federal Aviation Administration recognizes that a person has reached space. The spacecraft then fell back toward Earth, as the pilots guided it to the tarmac of Spaceport America, which the company says will be home to its space tourism business.