SPACE tourism just got one step closer with Virgin Galactic securing its space license this week.

The Federal Aviation Administration in the US has effectively granted the company the right to shuttle willing customers to the edge of the cosmos in a move that could usher in the advent of a revolutionary, albeit expensive, new industry.

According to the company, the license awarded by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation will ultimately permit commercial operations.

The company said the approval process involved a review of the system’s design, safety analysis and flight trajectory analysis.

“The granting of our operator license is an important milestone for Virgin Galactic,” said the company’s vice president of operations Mike Moses.

“While we still have much work ahead to fully test this spaceship in flight, I am confident that our world-class team is up to the challenge,” he said.

Virgin Galactic which is financially backed by its billionaire founder Richard Branson as well as Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, is hoping to use the license awarded for its SpaceShipTwo craft known as Unity to send a satellite, and possibly even paying customers, into space by early as next year.

Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Katy Perry and Stephen Hawking have all expressed interest in becoming space tourists and could be on board when the company finally launches its first human cargo, whenever that may be.

Despite the $US250,000 price tag for the journey, about 700 people have put down deposits for the space trip.

The two-pilot, six-passenger spaceship is designed to reach altitudes of 100km above Earth.

During the trip, passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and be treated to a view of Earth against the black backdrop of space.

On Monday the new version of the company’s space craft, which was unveiled in February, completed its first taxi test on a runway at the Mojave, California, airport.

Virgin Galactic’s first spaceship broke apart in 2014 during its fourth rocket-powered test flight when the co-pilot prematurely unlocked a key system.