Commercial spaceline company Virgin Galactic aims to run its next flight in late September and has resumed ticket sales — at a price of $450,000 — for suborbital flights on the company’s space plane, the VSS Unity.
On Thursday, the company announced its quarterly financial results; and while it posted an adjusted loss of $56 million for the quarter ending June 30, it still sat on $552 million in cash and equivalents. It also began reporting revenue at last —a reported $571,000 — even without flying any paying passengers yet, by flying scientific research payloads on its May 22 space flight.
Virgin Galactic is under contract with the federal space agency NASA to fly research experiments, and with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences for which researcher and educator Kellie Gerardi will board a dedicated flight at an undetermined date.
The company’s stock price rose in after-hours trading following Thursday’s report, which included a target of late September for its next flight, which will carry members of the Italian Air Force in training to be astronauts.
Virgin Galactic executed its first two flights from its base at New Mexico’s Spaceport America during the quarter as part of its final test phase before beginning regular passenger service for a brief flight over 50 miles above sea level.
Following the May 22 test flight, the Federal Aviation Administration gave clearance for the company to fly paying passengers. Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and three other passengers flew on July 11, just nine days before rival Blue Origin flew its first passengers, including founder Jeff Bezos, even higher into space.
The final test phase consists of two more flights: After the September mission, branded Unity 23, the company said it will pause to service the VMS Eve, the aircraft which carries the Unity to an altitude of 50,000 feet before releasing the spacecraft, before proceeding with Unity 24.
That likely places the beginning of regular commercial service into mid 2022, with approximately 600 ticketholders waiting for their opportunity.
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