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WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic says production of its new suborbital spaceplanes remains on track to allow commercial flights to begin in the middle of next year as it contemplates restarting ticket sales.
The company spent much of a May 15 earnings call talking about the technical progress it has made in the assembly of its first Delta-class vehicles, or SpaceShips, in areas such as structures, propulsion and avionics.
“An enormous amount of work is taking place across our company as well as our key suppliers,” said Michael Colglazier, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, in the call. Earlier in the day, the company released a video highlighting current progress on the vehicle, and Colglazier said the company would start a regular series of updates on assembly in June.
The company reaffirmed a schedule it provided in its previous earnings call in February that projects test flights of the new vehicle to begin in the spring of next year. The first commercial flights, with research payloads, would take place in the summer, with private astronaut flights starting in the fall.
With that schedule holding, Colglazier said the Virgin anticipated reopening ticket sales in the first quarter of 2026. The company will bring on new customers in waves through what he called a “white glove onboarding experience” that will also allow the company to adjust pricing. Virgin has not set new ticket prices yet, but they will be higher than previous sales at $600,000 each.
Virgin is also in the middle of a feasibility study regarding flights from an airport in southern Italy. “What we’re doing right now is establishing clarity of what airspace would be needed,” he said, as airspace requirements for flights there will depend on specific flight paths, which in turn will be based on weather conditions.
The company continues to explore alternative uses for the carrier aircraft that takes the spaceplanes aloft. The plane’s ability for high-altitude, long-endurance flights with heavy payloads could be used for other applications, Virgin noted in February, such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
“The volume of missions that could leverage this capability is increasing,” Colglazier said, noting the company has met with Defense Department officials and representatives of aerospace and defense companies about such uses of the plane. “We’ve been encouraged by initial feedback,” which he said included “multiple opportunities” linked to the new Golden Dome missile-defense imitative.
The company reported $0.5 million in revenue in the first quarter and an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) loss of $72 million. However, Virgin says it is past the peak of spending on the development of the new spaceplanes as it completes one-time investment in tooling needed to build the vehicles.
“We’re pleased that the peak spending is behind us,” said Doug Ahrens, chief financial officer of Virgin Galactic, on the call, as the company shifts into assembly of the first two of the vehicles. “What that gives is a trend where the required spending by quarter goes down” through the end of the year.
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