Why will Virgin Galactic return to flying only in 2026?
Last commercial flight of Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceplane, as the company is now producing its fourth-generation spaceships expected to enter commercial service in 2026
Last flight for Virgin Galactic.
The company created by tycoon Richard Branson to make suborbital spaceflight offerings for the commercial market took four tourists to the edge of space and back aboard its space plane on June 8, marking the second flight this year. But also the last one.
The spacecraft will in fact be retired after just seven commercial space flights, all carried out in the last year. Unity's first fully crewed suborbital spaceflight launched Virgin Galactic founder, billionaire Sir Richard Branson, and others in July 2021 on the Unity 22 mission, which followed three previous small-crew test flights. In 2023 the company successfully launched its first commercial flight into space with the crew of the Italian Air Force and the Cnr.
Now, however, Virgin Galactic will be grounded again for at least two years. This is because CEO Michael Colglazier and Virgin Galactic are betting everything on the development of a future "Delta class" of spaceships modeled on VSS Unity.
Going all in on Delta spaceships is a bold bet on the future, but it's by no means a sure bet, notes Ars Technica .
After that, the space tourism company announced a 1-for-20 reverse stock split on June 12, sending its shares down 19% in extended trading. The company's stock was trading at 70 cents a share after the bell and is down more than 65% so far this year.
All the details.
AN ITALIAN ON BOARD THE SECOND AND LAST FLIGHT OF THE VSS UNITY SPACE PLANE THIS YEAR
Last June 8, the Galactic 07 mission carried a Turkish researcher and three private astronauts (including the Italian Giorgio Manenti) on a suborbital space flight that lasted just over an hour.
The space tourism company said the mission took off and returned to Spaceport America in New Mexico.
TWO YEAR STOP
But Unity won't fly anymore. “This vehicle was revolutionary,” Virgin Galactic President Mike Moses said in the post-launch press conference. Virgin Galactic is grounding Unity's SpaceShipTwo in favor of its new "Delta Class" of spacecraft designed to fly more often.
The new class of Delta spacecraft will be able to fly at least twice a week, about eight times the speed of SpaceShipTwo, with Virgin Galactic planning to build at least two of them to start its new fleet.
“We will deploy in 2026 two spaceships, our mothership Eve, that's 750 astronauts a year going into space,” Moses said of the new fleet's flight capability. “That's more than have gone into space in the 60-year history of spaceflight to date.”
THE TIMINGS
So Virgin Galactic projects that this cadence will allow the company to fly 750 astronauts a year at a price of $600,000 a seat, raising $450 million a year. At its current expenses, this would allow Virgin Galactic to nearly break even. (That is, after having flown its current manifesto to 600 customers who had previously purchased tickets at prices of $250,000 and $450,000), Ars Technica points out.
The company will develop a third Delta ship along with a second transport aircraft, with the goal of having both vehicles operational by 2028. This will allow the company to become profitable and continue to grow its operations beyond the current Spaceport facility America in New Mexico.
However, there are some concerns with this plan. It assumes that Delta ships will start flying on schedule, which happens very rarely in space development projects, notes the American newspaper.
THE STOCK GROUPING TO REMAIN ON THE NYSE
Finally, on June 12 the space tourism company approved a 1:20 reverse stock split of its common stock. The shares will begin trading on a split-adjusted basis when the market opens on June 17, 2024 under the existing trading symbol “SPCE.”
The company planned the stock split to meet minimum share price requirements to continue listing on the New York Stock Exchange, Virgin Galactic said.
The reverse stock split was approved by shareholders at the annual meeting on June 12, 2024. Following the stock split, every 20 shares of the Company's common stock issued and outstanding will automatically be reclassified into one new common share. The news caused Virgin Galactic shares to drop by 15%.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/perche-virgin-galactic-tornera-a-volare-solo-nel-2026/ on Mon, 17 Jun 2024 07:52:30 +0000.