WASHINGTON - Virgin Galactic has announced that its new suborbital spaceplane won't be carrying paying customers until early 2027, a delay of just a few months. Because when you're building a spaceship, a few months is basically a cosmic sneeze.
In the company's second-quarter earnings call on Aug. 12, executives revealed that commercial flights of their first Spaceship suborbital vehicle are now expected to begin in February 2027. Previously, in May, they'd optimistically eyed the fourth quarter of this year. But as any DIY enthusiast knows, projects always take longer than expected, especially when the project involves going to space.
CEO Michael Colglazier explained that the delay wasn't due to one dramatic catastrophe, but rather a death by a thousand small cuts. "No single issue is driving the schedule push; rather, we have experienced modest time-duration extensions across hundreds of relatively small but important installation tasks involved in the first build of our new spaceship," he said. Apparently, some components arrived "a few thousandths of an inch taller or shorter" than expected, sparking existential debates about design tolerances. The number of "oh, we didn't expect this to not fit just perfectly" moments was higher than allotted, and the team simply needed more time to do it the correct way.
But fear not, space enthusiasts. The assembly work is wrapping up, and integrated vehicle ground tests are expected to begin later this month. The revised schedule calls for shipping the vehicle to Spaceport America in New Mexico in October for flight tests. To meet this new timeline, the company has deployed two shifts of workers, seven days a week, which will cause a temporary spike in capital expenditures in the third quarter, according to CFO Doug Ahrens.
Financially, Virgin Galactic isn't sweating it. With a second spaceship in production and expected to enter service in the second quarter, the company aims to hit a flight rate of at least 10 per month by the end of that quarter, achieving positive quarterly cash flow in 2027. They raised $134 million in an at-the-market stock sale in Q2, leaving them with $286 million in cash and equivalents. Ahrens assured that this is sufficient to reach commercial service, though they might raise more money later to accelerate fleet growth.
In other news, Virgin Galactic also closed the sale of a tranche of tickets at $750,000 each, announced in March. Originally planning to sell 50 tickets, high demand led them to sell more, bringing total bookings to over $50 million. "We were oversubscribed by a reasonable amount, and that's great," Colglazier said. The new customers include multi-generation expeditions, research missions, corporate charters, and nonprofit bookings.
Next up: a new round of ticket sales later this year at a higher, undisclosed price. Colglazier noted that Blue Origin sold suborbital flights on New Shepard for between $1 million and $2 million a ticket (before suspending flights in January for at least two years). "I don't think we need to be driving our prices up that quickly," he said, "but there is strong and solid demand, and we do expect each time we release a tranche of tickets, it will be priced higher than the tranche before, and that's appropriate." Because why not? Space is the final frontier, and apparently, it's also a seller's market.