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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In 2011 Richard Branson offered William Shatner a Virgin Galactic ticket priced at $200,000 and Shatner declined because he said he would only fly if he were paid.
Virgin Galactic postponed the next SpaceShipTwo flight, Unity 23, on 2021-09-10 to no earlier than mid-2021-10-01.
The Federal Aviation Administration completed its investigation into a problem on Virgin Galactic’s most recent SpaceShipTwo flight on 2021-09-29.
Virgin Galactic implemented the FAA-required changes and regained clearance to return to flight operations.
Virgin Galactic delayed its next SpaceShipTwo mission, Unity 23, to the middle of October to perform inspections of a potential manufacturing defect in a flight control actuation system component.
Virgin Galactic had about 600 customers signed up before it announced plans in August to reopen ticket sales.
Virgin Galactic expected to perform the Unity 23 mission in late September or early October 2021.
The Federal Aviation Administration is overseeing a mishap investigation into Virgin Galactic’s 2021-07-11 Unity 22 flight of SpaceShipTwo.
Virgin Galactic had sold more than 600 tickets to customers in 58 countries prior to Richard Branson’s flight, with ticket prices as high as $250,000.
Existing Virgin Galactic shareholders will own 85% of the merged company, NextGen will own 10%, and the PIPE investors and SPAC sponsors will own the remaining 5%.
The late September Unity flight is for the Italian Air Force and is expected to produce about $2,000,000 in revenue for Virgin Galactic.
Virgin Galactic began selling tickets about 15 years before 2021 at $200,000 and later increased the price to $250,000.
Virgin Galactic reopened ticket sales starting at $450,000 per person on its 2021-08-05 quarterly earnings call.
Virgin Galactic announced a deal to license SpaceShipOne technology and proposed to start flying people in 2007 or 2008.
Virgin Galactic plans one more test flight of its current SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, before entering a maintenance period, with that flight scheduled for late September 2021.
Virgin Galactic flew SpaceShipTwo with six people, including founder Richard Branson, on 2021-07-11.
Virgin Galactic raised $500,000,000 in July through a sale of stock to fund various efforts.
Virgin Galactic plans to develop a campus near Spaceport America for training and lodging to support an increased flight rate.
Customers who signed up for Virgin Galactic’s One Small Step program with a $1,000 deposit will have the first opportunity to buy seats on future suborbital spaceflights.
Virgin Galactic is developing a future Delta class of suborbital spaceplanes that would be air-launched from a next-generation aircraft that replaces WhiteKnightTwo.