In a major step forward in its space tourism push, suborbital space tourism carrier Virgin Galactic disclosed that it was contracting Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to build a new set of carrier planes.
Aurora Flight Sciences is set to build two "motherships" for Virgin Galactic that are expected to fly 200 times a year, a Space.com report revealed.
New 'Motherships' to Rollout in 2025
Not disclosed in the Virgin Galactic press announcement were the terms of the deal and any regulatory approval. Aurora, however, has vowed to roll out the new carrier planes by 2025,around two years after Virgin Galactic is targeted to start commercial passenger operations.
Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in the announcement that the next-generation motherships is "integral to scaling our operations." With the Aurora deal, the motherships will be "faster to produce, easier to maintain, and allow (Virgin) to fly substantially more missions each year."
Virgin Galactic has said it is targeting 400 flights a year with the two new motherships and a fleet of new "Delta-class" space planes, each of which is expected to fly once a week. The Virgin Galactic statement released last Wednesday said those spaceships should begin service in 2025 with "revenue payload flights." Virgin Galactic has also said that the motherships should be ready to fly paying customers in 2026.
Virgin Galactic successfully launched its first fully crewed spaceflight about a year ago, on July 11, 2021, with founder Richard Branson and some crewmates on board. They flew on the company's VSS Unity space plane, which was launched on the carrier aircraft VMS Eve.
Virgin Galactic has not launched a suborbital flight since then. The company instead chose to conduct maintenance and upgrade work on Unity and Eve, currently the sole operational carrier plane and spaceship, respectively, in the Virgin Galactic fleet.
Subiorbital Sppace Flight Ticket Prices
Virgin Galactic briefly resumed ticket sales twice to customers since the July 2021 flight, increasing the per-seat price from $250,000 to $450,000. Since then, Virgin Galactic reported an accumulated passenger pool of 700, with 800 on the waiting list.
The company implements an air-launch strategy, in which a space plane is brought aloft under the wings of a carrier aircraft. Both spacecraft are launched together to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters). At this altitude, the space plane would drops free and go into suborbital space utilizing its onboard rocket motor.
VSS Unity has made it to space four times during test flights to date. The company recently announced the next suborbital flight is expected in 2023, about three months later than previously expected due to "supply chain and labor constraints."
Virgin's main rival in the suborbital space tourism sector is Blue Origin, established and run by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos flew on Blue Origin's first-ever crewed flight on July 20, 2021, along with his brother and several other passengers, including actor William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in "Star Trek." Blue Origin has now brought people to the final frontier five times, with its most recent space flight last June 4.Blue Origin has yet to disclose its ticket prices.
Similar to fellow emerging space tourism companies, Virgin Galactic's stock plummeted in 2022, with shares slipping more than 50% year to date, CNBC reported. Earlier in 2022, Virgin Galactic pushed back the launch of its commercial space tourism offering to the first quarter of 2023, with the top-to-bottom revamp of the company expected to be completed in September.
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