Monday's successful powered flight of SpaceShipTwo was a major milestone for Virgin Galactic and its founder, Sir Richard Branson. More than 500 people hold tickets for a sub-orbital flight to the edge of space, and the supersonic test flight took them all one step closer to the day they'll take flight. There's still a lot of work to be done, and the team at Scaled Composites building and testing the hardware for Branson will make many more flights as it expands and defines the flight envelope of the spacecraft.

Monday's flight was made early in the day to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and lighter winds common to Mojave at that hour.