Virgin Galactic, founded by Richard Branson, is a British-American spaceflight company focused on providing suborbital spaceflights to space tourists and researchers. As the world's first commercial spaceline, it develops and operates its own reusable spaceflight systems, including the SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo. While the company is shifting its focus to Delta class vehicles for commercial service in 2026, its current partners include Redwire for manufacturing research payload lockers and it operates from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
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Shares of Virgin Galactic traded on the New York Stock Exchange fell 18.4% on 2024-06-23.
Virgin Galactic completed a sale of $300,000,000 of stock that it disclosed in 2022-08-01, according to a 2024-06-22 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Virgin Galactic resumed flights of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle VMS Unity earlier in 2024, including a 2023-05-25 suborbital test flight that was the first Unity flight to space since Richard Branson’s 2021-07-01 flight.
Virgin Galactic stated on 2024-06-15 that its first flight carrying private astronauts, Galactic 02, is tentatively scheduled for early 2024-08-01 with subsequent flights planned on a monthly basis.
Virgin Galactic postponed the mission in October 2021 to carry out maintenance on SpaceShipTwo and its mothership VMS Eve before flying the mission.
Virgin Galactic announced plans to sell an additional $400,000,000 of stock and is working with Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs on that offering.
Virgin Galactic plans to conduct its first fully commercial flight of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane on 2024-06-29.
Virgin Galactic signed a contract with the Italian Air Force for the mission in October 2019 with initial intent to fly as soon as late 2020 or early 2021.
Galactic 01 will carry three people from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy under a contract Virgin Galactic signed with the Italian Air Force in 2019.
Virgin Galactic performed the Unity 25 test flight on 2023-05-25, the first powered flight of the vehicle in nearly two years.
Galactic 02 in early August will be the first SpaceShipTwo flight to carry private individuals who signed up for space tourism flights with Virgin Galactic, paying up to $450,000 per seat.
Virgin Galactic released VSS Unity at 12:23 p.m. Eastern on 2025-05-25.
Virgin Galactic planned to perform the first spaceflight in nearly two years by its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle VSS Unity in 2024-05-31 from Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Virgin Galactic concluded that VMS Eve would be sufficient to support the Delta-class test flight campaign in 2025 and Unity commercial flights, deferring the need for new motherships until Delta-class commercial service begins in 2026.
Virgin Galactic projects the amortized cost of each Delta-class spaceplane at $100,000 to $120,000 per flight based on a production cost of $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 and an estimated lifetime of 500 flights.
Virgin Galactic estimates operating costs per Delta-class flight at about $400,000, including costs of flying both the spaceplane and its mothership as well as training and hospitality for astronauts.
Virgin Galactic reported a net loss of $159,400,000 in the first quarter of 2024 with negligible revenue.
Virgin Galactic planned to finalize the Delta-class vehicle design in 2024, retaining the same outer mold line as Unity but changing the composite structure and upgrading systems like avionics to make the vehicle lighter and faster to turn around between flights.
If Unity 25 is successful, Virgin Galactic expects to conduct its first commercial flight, Galactic 01, in late June 2024 as a dedicated research flight for the Italian Air Force under a contract announced in 2019.
Virgin Galactic expects to start assembling the first Delta-class vehicles at a new factory near Phoenix in 2024 with test flights in 2025.