Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

As Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ World News commemorates the 40th anniversary of the extraordinary 1969 moon landings, fast:track, the channel’s travel news programme, films exclusive footage of Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnightTwo aircraft flying past Las Cruces airport, New Mexico. The footage will air during a special edition of fast:track on 12 July*.

WhiteKnightTwo - the aircraft that carries the suborbital spacecraft SpaceShipTwo to a high altitude before it launches into space - is to be publicly unveiled at the Oshkosh airshow in Wisconsin in July, while SpaceShipTwo should begin test glides in December. If all goes to plan, the inaugural flight will carry Sir Richard Branson, his family and spaceship designer Burt Rutan on a sub-orbital ride within two years.

Steve Landeene, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, said: "The future is here and we are not too far off a new age of space. It is not just about private astronauts going up, it is about bringing the cost structure down and about new medicines, solar power in space and the entire range of scientific benefits that can come from it."

To view the footage please go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8111258.stm

*fast:track transmission times: 12 July at 0630 GMT (not South Asia or Asia Pacific), 13 July at 2030, 14 July at 1130 (Asia Pacific Only) 15 July at 1530 and 16 July at 0230 (Not Asia Pacific, Middle East or South Asia)