Virgin Galactic managed to successfully complete the first  voyage with the WhiteKnightTwo double-wide plane. The preparations for this mission were intense and it is considered a great achievement.

The plane took off for its one-hour flight from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, being powered by four Pratt and Whitney PW308A turbofan engines. The takeoff took place at 8:17 a.m. PST and the return occurred just as scheduled, at 9:17 a.m. PST.

"The maiden flight went perfectly," said Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn during an interview with Wired.com.  "With these aircraft, nothing is ever a foregone conclusion.  It's not like pulling another AirBus off the line and putting it into the air. This was a big moment.  I think it was a big milestone for the whole industry," he added.

Even though it was supposed to reach the maximum altitude of 12,000 feet, the plane got up to 16,000 feet, with the flight coordinators happy to observe that everything remained on track, even 4,000 feet higher.

The company hopes to make the WhiteKnightTwo the carrier of its SpaceShipTwo into suborbital flight for paying space tourists, as this is expected to become an extremely successful business in the future.  The company has five SpaceShipTwo and two WhiteKnightTwo aircraft on order ready for construction, and it is now waiting for the complete assessments on how the tests went in order to give the green light on the manufacturing process.

The estimated costs for the original SpaceShipOne are of more than $10 million.