Virgin Galactic is up more than 30% amid news of a resumption of space travel ticket sales. Tickets will be available for purchase tomorrow, February 16.
The company conducted its first test flight on July 11, 2021, with Virgin founder Richard Branson and five others aboard the Unity 22 spacecraft. And that flight was not without incident: for 1 minute 41 seconds, the spacecraft flew off the planned trajectory, which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to temporarily suspend further Virgin Galactic flights. At the end of September, the regulator, after conducting an investigation, allowed Virgin Galactic to continue suborbital flights. The next test flight – with an Italian crew on board – was scheduled for late September-early October. However, in mid-October, the company reported technical problems discovered during routine tests of the spacecraft. As a result, Virgin has postponed the start of commercial flights to the end of 2022.
As indicated in the company’s latest financial report, Virgin sells tickets for a suborbital flight for at least $450,000. At the same time, the client must make $150,000 as a deposit, and $25,000 of them are non-refundable.
By the end of 2022, Virgin hopes to grow its customer base to 1,000. By the end of last year, about 700 tickets for future flights had already been sold, and almost all of them cost $200,000-250,000.
Note that Virgin shares have lost about 85% of the value of the peak value of $55.91, recorded at the end of June last year.