(CNN) -- A pair of pilots flew the world's first manned commercial spacecraft over California's Mojave Desert on Sunday, though they were the only ones aboard.
The mission was a test flight for Richard Branson's dream of affordable space travel and put his vision a step closer to reality, he said after watching the spaceship land.
"Now, the sky is no longer the limit, and we will begin the process of pushing beyond to the final frontier of space itself over the next year," Branson said, according to a statement released by his company, Virgin Galactic, which is behind the project.
The spaceship, called the VSS Enterprise, completed a successful free flight from a mothership at 45,000 feet (13,700 meters) to a landing in Mojave, California, Virgin Galactic said.
"This was one of the most exciting days in the whole history of Virgin," Branson said Sunday, according to the company's statement. "I watched the world's first manned commercial spaceship landing on the runway at Mojave Air and Space Port and it was a great moment".
His company said that the two chief goals of the flight were for the VSS Enterprise to perform a clean release from its mothership and for the pilots to free fly and glide back to its destination in Southern California.
Preparations for Sunday's flight were extensive, Virgin Galactic said. The mothership, named Eve, flew 40 times, including what the company said were four captive carry flights of "spaceship and mothership mated together".
CNN
