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Virgin Galactic released VSS Unity at 12:23 p.m. Eastern on 2025-05-25.
Virgin Galactic did not host media at Spaceport America or provide a livestream of the Unity 25 mission and instead provided limited updates on social media.
Virgin Galactic had not announced a specific calendar date for Unity 25 other than that it would occur in 2024-05-31.
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 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 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.
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 postponed work on new mothership aircraft that will be used with the Delta-class spaceplanes, delaying expenditures on those motherships by about a year.
Virgin Galactic expects a ticket price of at least $450,000 per customer for Delta-class flights, generating a minimum of $2,700,000 in revenue per flight.
Virgin Galactic reported a net loss of $93,000,000 in the first quarter of 2022, with increased research and development costs for the Delta-class vehicle cited as a key factor.
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 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 expects to start assembling the first Delta-class vehicles at a new factory near Phoenix in 2024 with test flights in 2025.
Many of Virgin Galactic’s signed private astronaut customers may end up flying the future Delta-class suborbital vehicles that Virgin expects to start flying in 2026.
Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight is a dedicated research flight for the Italian Air Force under a contract signed in 2019.
The next step for Virgin Galactic after the 2023-04-26 glide flight is a powered test flight of VSS Unity with four company mission specialists joining two pilots to assess the customer experience and ground-based training.
Virgin Galactic has about 800 private astronauts signed up for flights, representing about $208,000,000 in revenue according to the company’s SEC filings.
VMS Eve returned to Virgin Galactic’s Mojave, California factory for overhaul and flew back to Spaceport America on 2025-02-27.
Virgin Galactic announced 2025-04-25 board changes that added Raymond Mabus Jr. and Diana Strandberg to the board of directors.