Virgin Galactic unveils a new ship, but it’s running out of time and money

On Thursday, the space company Virgin Galactic shared on social media A new photo of his next ship is being towed outside his factory in Mesa, Arizona.

You remember Virgin Galactic, right? The space tourism company was founded 22 years ago by Sir Richard Branson to bring space travel to the masses. Hundreds of people started buying tickets to space almost two decades ago. And after a long, and sometimes fatal, development campaign, the company reached out (explained, somewhat contradictorysuch as the height of 80 km and above) in December 2018.

The company began flying passengers in May 2021 with its VSS Oneness flight, and completed an impressive six flights in 2023. But a few months later, in June 2024Virgin Galactic stopped flying the VSS Oneness focusing on the development of its next-generation high-flying, low-cost vehicle.

Since then, the company has been relatively quiet, which makes this week’s revelation of the new hardware a bit more interesting. So Virgin Galactic is still moving forward, but the question is where is it going, and with it, the whole tourism sector.

Hard to make a profit

Spaceflight remains an expensive and risky business, even for companies focused on simple suborbital flights.

There was a time, about five years ago, when the market looked ready to break. In the summer of 2021, both Virgin Galactic and its US competitor, Blue Origin, began flights. Fortunately, Branson and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos both went to space within weeks.

Both companies have been in high demand for their services.