July 11 (Reuters) - Flamboyant British entrepreneur Richard Branson is set to fly to space on a Sunday test flight by his Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc, beating fellow aspiring billionaire astronaut and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos by about a week. The launch of Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity rocket plane over the New Mexico desert will mark the space tourism company’s first test mission beyond Earth’s atmosphere to carry a full complement of space travelers. From building a conglomerate to flying into space, here is a summary of Branson’s life and business: 1950: Born on July 18 in the United Kingdom to Eve, an air hostess with British South American Airways and Ted Branson, an ex-cavalry officer 1960s: Starts first business venture at 15, a student magazine, drops out of Stowe school 1970: Starts first Virgin company, a mail-order business. Virgin Group now operates more than 40 companies across five business sectors and five continents 1973: Launches the Virgin Records label that will go on to represent the Sex Pistols, the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, the Smashing Pumpkins and the Spice Girls 1978: Buys Necker Island in the Caribbean for $180,000 on the condition that he would build a resort within four years 1984: Launches Virgin Atlantic airlines 1985: Makes his first attempt to enter the record books: tries to make the fastest-ever boat crossing of the Atlantic, but it capsizes 140 miles (225.31 km) off the British coast 1992: Sells Virgin Records to Thorn EMI for $1 billion 1998: Publishes first autobiography, “Losing My Virginity,” posing nude on front page of the Sun tabloid to promote it 1999: Launches Virgin Mobile phone service in the UK, which subsequently expanded to Australia, the United States and Canada 2000: Receives a knighthood for services to entrepreneurship, rolls out Virgin Cars, Virgin Student, Virginmoney.com, Virgin Wines and Virgin Energy businesses 2004: Launches the first commercial space tourism business - Virgin Galactic 2013: Virgin Galactic’s six-passenger ship, called VSS Enterprise, makes its first powered flight 2014: Virgin Galactic’s passenger spaceship crashes during a test flight, killing one pilot and injuring the other 2021: Virgin Galactic receives approval from the U.S. aviation safety regulator to fly people to space. It announces that Branson, now worth about $6 billion according to Forbes, will travel to the edge of space on the company’s test flight on July 11 Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Daniel Wallis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.