Virgo Galactic
Nearly a full year has passed since Virgin Galactic last flew its SpaceShipTwo vehicle into space, but the company says it’s progressing toward a faster cadence of flights.
On Wednesday, Virgin Galactic announced a deal with Boeing-owned Aurora Flight Sciences to design and build two next-generation motherships. A mothership lifts the Virgin Galactic spaceship to an altitude of approximately 15 km before releasing it, after which the spaceship fires its rocket engine and flies above 90 km.
In a press release, Virgin Galactic said it expects to take delivery of the first of the two new motherships in 2025. The company currently operates a single aircraft carrier, VMS Evewhich made its maiden flight in 2008. Virgin has not said how long this vehicle will be able to fly missions, nor how much refurbishment it will need as it will fly more frequently.
“Our next-generation motherships are an integral part of scaling our business,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in the release. “They are faster to manufacture, easier to maintain and allow us to fly significantly more missions each year. Backed by the scale and strength of Boeing, Aurora is the ideal manufacturing partner for us as we grow our fleet to support 400 flights per year at Spaceport America.”
That target of 400 flights a year is considered the cadence that Virgin Galactic must achieve to become profitable. That seems like a lot, given that the company… VSS unit has not flown since July 2021 and will not return to service until at least the fourth quarter of this year.
Virgin Galactic reported a net loss of $93 million in the first quarter of this year, but said demand for its services was strong and it had “cash equivalents, limited cash and marketable securities of $1.22 billion” on hand. The company will release its second quarter financial results next month.
Partly due to the long period without space flight since July last year, the share of the listed company has fallen sharply. Around the time Virgin Galactic flew its founder, Sir Richard Branson, into space last July, the stock was trading above $50 a share. The price was $6.45 a share at the close of trading on Wednesday.
The problem for Virgin Galactic is not the question. Hundreds of customers have deposited to fly the company’s spaceplanes, and Virgin hopes to have 1,000 reservations by the end of this year. Rather, the question is whether Virgin Galactic can meet that demand with a vehicle that has so far had a very low flight speed compared to the company’s forecasts.
The company is building a new generation of spacecraft called “Delta”-class vehicles to meet that demand. These spacecraft are designed for faster reuse. In Wednesday’s press release, Virgin Galactic said it plans to fly the first Delta-class spaceship with revenue cargo flights in 2025, when the first new mothership arrives.
That’s three years or more from now. Given the rate at which Virgin Galactic is burning money and the delays inherent in complex space development projects, the company’s financial challenges in the coming years could transcend technical hurdles.
