Looking to the future, Virgin Galactic purchases 2 more motherships

Almost a full yr has handed since Virgin Galactic final flew its SpaceShipTwo automobile into area, however the firm says it’s progressing towards a extra speedy cadence of flights.

On Wednesday, Virgin Galactic introduced a take care of Boeing-owned Aurora Flight Sciences to design and manufacture two next-generation motherships. A mothership carries the Virgin Galactic spaceship to an altitude of about 15 km earlier than releasing it, after which the spaceship fires its rocket engine and flies above 90 km.

In a information launch, Virgin Galactic mentioned it expects to take supply of the primary of the 2 new motherships in 2025. The corporate presently has a single service plane, VMS Eve, that made its first flight in 2008. Virgin has not mentioned how lengthy this automobile will have the ability to fly missions, nor how a lot refurbishment it’ll want because it begins flying extra continuously.

“Our next-generation motherships are integral to scaling our operations,” mentioned Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier within the launch. “They are going to be quicker to provide, simpler to keep up, and can permit us to fly considerably extra missions annually. Supported by the dimensions and energy of Boeing, Aurora is the best manufacturing companion for us as we construct our fleet to help 400 flights per yr at Spaceport America.”

That concentrate on of 400 flights per yr is believed to be the cadence Virgin Galactic must hit to achieve profitability. That looks like a stretch, provided that the corporate’s VSS Unity has not flown since July 2021 and won’t return to service till at the least the fourth quarter of this yr.

Virgin Galactic reported a web lack of $93 million in the course of the first quarter this yr however mentioned demand for its companies was robust and that it had “money equivalents, restricted money, and marketable securities of $1.22 billion” available. The corporate is because of report its second-quarter monetary outcomes subsequent month.

Partly because of the lengthy interval and not using a spaceflight since final July, the publicly traded firm’s inventory has dropped precipitously. Across the time Virgin Galactic flew its founder, Sir Richard Branson, into area final July, the inventory was buying and selling above $50 a share. The value was $6.45 a share on the shut of enterprise on Wednesday.

The problem for Virgin Galactic will not be demand. Lots of of consumers have put down a deposit to fly on the corporate’s area planes, and Virgin hopes to have 1,000 reservations by the tip of this yr. Relatively, the difficulty is whether or not Virgin Galactic can meet that demand with a automobile that, thus far, has had a really low flight charge in comparison with the corporate’s projections.

The corporate is constructing a brand new technology of spacecraft known as “Delta” class autos to satisfy that demand. These spacecraft are being designed with extra speedy reuse in thoughts. Within the information launch on Wednesday, Virgin Galactic mentioned it plans to have the primary Delta-class spaceship start flying income payload flights in 2025, when the primary new mothership arrives.

That’s three years, or extra, from now. Given the speed of Virgin Galactic’s money burn and delays inherent in advanced aerospace improvement initiatives, the corporate’s monetary challenges within the years forward might exceed the technical hurdles.