Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) on Tuesday said it's on track to resume commercial service in the second quarter of this year and that the space tourism company's "mothership" has returned to the Land of Enchantment.
Virgin Galactic employees at Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences are starting to ready the facility to "safely fly ships to space on a regular basis," Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. Resuming and increasing the frequency of commercial flights is the company's focus for 2023, he said.
The highly anticipated commercial flights by the space tourism company have been beset by delays ever since its July 11, 2021 flight of the company's SpaceShipTwo.
During an investor call just over a year ago, Colglazier said Virgin Galactic was "on track and on schedule" to begin commercial service in the fourth quarter of 2022 and announced that at least 750 flight reservations were sold. But just months later, the company further pushed its commercial flight timeframe to the first quarter of 2023.
Colglazier on Tuesday said that upgrades to the company's mothership, called VMS Eve, took longer than originally planned. Those upgrades, now complete, included installing new stabilizers and replacing the ship's launch pylon.
VMS Eve flew to New Mexico's Spaceport America on Monday after completing some mechanical upgrades at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Southern California. The flight came nearly two weeks after the aircraft flew for the first time since 2021 in Mojave, Calif.
Colglazier told investors that the company is "very pleased" with how the VMS Eve has performed during flights.
The company plans to run a series of test flights with the VMS Eve and its VSS Unity, the aircraft that will carry customers to the upper limits of the atmosphere. Those tests include a glide flight — Eve will carry Unity into the upper atmosphere before releasing it to glide back — as well as a powered flight. Those flights are designed to validate the performance of both aircraft, Colglazier said on the call.
Once those test flights are complete, the company plans to run a research flight with a crew from the Italian Air Force. That Italian Air Force flight was delayed in late 2021 after it was planned for November that year.
Looking farther out, Colglazier said Virgin Galactic wants the first of its "Delta" class ships to enter commercial service in 2026 after beginning flight testing in 2025. He added that the company is "making progress" on its assembly facility in Mesa, Arizona, which the company first announced last summer.
Colglazier said that Virgin has completed a conceptual design for its astronaut campus that the company plans to build at a site near Spaceport America but didn't provide any further updates for when that campus could be completed.
Overall, Virgin Galactic saw an increase of over $150 million in research and development costs as it completed those upgrades to VMS Eve, said Doug Ahrens, the company's chief financial officer, during the earnings call. Its operating expenses grew to $154 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, up from $81 million during the same period in 2021.
The company reported a net loss of $500 million during the full year that ended on Dec. 31, 2022, compared to a $353 million net loss during the previous year. Its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization showed a loss of $431 million in 2022 compared to a loss of $245 million in 2021.
Shares of Virgin Galactic stock closed at a price of $5.74 on Tuesday, according to MarketWatch. That's compared to $7.84 a share at this time last year.
