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Richard Branson's space-tourism venture, Virgin Galactic, plans to go public as the first human space flight firm to do so.

Branson's company is racing against Blue Origin, the space business of Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, to bring tourists into space.

The British business magnate said he plans to be the first passenger on the maiden commercial flight of the company’s SpaceShipTwo in mid-2019.

Going public comes as part of a deal with the publicly listed company Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp, created by CEO Chamath Palihapitiya.

The deal was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal, which said Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp will invest about $800 million for a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic.

Following the investment, the combined company will have a pro forma enterprise value of $1.5 billion.

Virgin Galactic in February soared to the edge of space with a test passenger for the first time, nudging the company closer to its goal of suborbital flights for space tourists.

After Branson founded the company in 2004, his ambitious timeline for taking customers into space suffered delays.

In a fatal setback, the original SpaceShipTwo crashed on a test flight in 2014 that killed the co-pilot and seriously injured the pilot.

Hundreds of people from 60 countries, including actor Leonardo DiCaprio and pop star Justin Bieber, have paid or put down deposits to fly on one of Virgin's suborbital flights. Some of Virgin Galactic's ticket holders have been waiting over 14 years for their trip.

A 90-minute flight, which allows passengers to experience a few minutes of weightlessness, costs about $250,000.

The cost is expected to come down "dramatically" over the next decade as space travel becomes more accessible to common people, Branson said on CNBC.

"I think we can do it a lot quicker than aviation did it."

Virgin's current reservations represent about $80 million in total collected deposits and $120 million of potential revenue.

Agencies contributed to this report.