Richard Branson is best known for being the founder and chairman of Virgin Group, which controls more than 400 different companies. The high-school dropout is an entrepreneur and businessman and is now worth over $4.6 billion. He’s taken the famed Giving Pledge, promising to give away at least half of his wealth during his life or upon death.

Virgin Galactic is expected to launch starting next year.
Branson's next venture involves offering commercial space flights
So what’s Branson’s next big plan? To send people into space, of course. The media mogul has created Virgin Galactic, a commercial spaceflight company that aims to take passengers to the edge of space and back. Flights cost about $200,000 per ticket, and already more than 500 people have been rumored to have signed up (including actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie).

Monday marked a big step forward in Branson’s plans: the first solo flight of the SpaceShip Two was successfully completed. The ship was released from a carrier aircraft above the Mojave desert, its engines were lit, and for a glorious 15 seconds or so the ship flew on its own.

“For the 1st time ever, SS2 has lit her rocket engine in flight!” read Virgin Galactic’s Twitter feed. “A major milestone in human spaceflight.”

Branson and his family will be the first to fly on the commercial space airline.
Branson celebrates SS2's first successful solo flight.
Image: Mark Greenberg
In an interview with SPACE.com, Branson expressed his own excitement over the successful flight, saying, “We had the biggest grins on our faces that we’ve had for a long, long time. Today was the biggest milestone in this program. Now that we’ve broken the sound barrier, the flight was smooth, the rocket and spaceship can work together, we realty feel that we’re on our way.”

Branson added that there will be many more test flights over the coming months to ensure that everything is 100 percent safe before taking anyone into space. He and his family will be the very first passengers, and he expects that the spaceship will venture into space by the end of this year. That means if everything goes according to plan, commercial space flights will be available starting next year.