Land Rover has revealed a long-term global partnership with Richard Branson’s pioneering commercial spaceline, Virgin Galactic.

Land Rover vehicles will be used by Virgin Galactic’s ‘astronauts’ at the company’s test centre in the Mojave Desert, California and at the actual base for space flights, Spaceport America in New Mexico. The cars will even be used to ferry passengers from the terminal to the spaceship itself.

It used the launch of the new Land Rover Discovery Vision Concept at the New York Motor Show to unveil the partnership, which came against the backdrop of the launch of SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first commercial passenger carrying spacecraft.

Last April, SpaceShipTwo made its first powered flight over the Mojave Desert. To date, the company has accepted more than $70 million in deposits for space flights from about 580 people.

The new family of Discovery vehicles will go on sale next year. The Land Rover Discovery will move from a single model to a new family of vehicles.