Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company that kicked off its commercial service from New Mexico's Spaceport America last month, on Thursday announced that the window for its next commercial flight will open August 10.
That flight, called "Galactic 02," is set to be the company's (NYSE: SPCE) first private astronaut mission and second commercial service flight. Its first commercial flight, with a crew of two Italian Air Force officers and one Italian researcher, launched and touched back down at Spaceport America on June 29.
That was a research mission, which had been planned and delayed for a couple of years. August's flight, in contrast, would be Virgin Galactic's first tourism mission with a private astronaut crew.
That's been the long-time objective of the Mojave, California-based company, founded in 2004 by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson — making commercial space travel accessible to customers willing to pay close to $500,000 for a seat on Virgin Galactic's spaceship, VSS Unity.
June's research mission was dubbed a success after VSS Unity spent about an hour and fifteen minutes high above southern New Mexico. The research crew was able to conduct all the experiments they wanted to, Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei said during a press conference after the flight.
Following the August flight, Virgin Galactic wants to run commercial flights at a rate of one per month. The company flies out of Spaceport America, the 18,000-acre site outside Truth or Consequences in southern New Mexico.
Scott McLaughlin, the Spaceport's executive director, said the state-run facility may need to bring on more emergency medical services once that monthly cadence gets up and running. Virgin Galactic has over 250 employees in New Mexico and leases the Spaceport's "Gateway to Space" building for its operations in the state.
A media representative for Virgin Galactic said in a release that the company will provide information on the crew on board the August flight soon. The space tourism company also plans to livestream the mission on its website.
VMS Eve, Virgin Galactic's "mothership" that carries VSS Unity up to around 40,000 feet before the spaceship launches into space, flew from Mojave to Spaceport America in February 2023, its first flight since October 2021. The mothership underwent some upgrades while in California in preparation for commercial service.
That service, until last month, had been beset by delays. Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic's CEO, said in a February 2022 earnings call the company planned to launch its commercial service later that year before pushing the timeframe back to the first quarter of 2023.
It's now on the cusp of regular commercial flight service, with a new generation of spaceships, called the "Delta" class, starting production at a Phoenix-area assembly facility. Once tested and ready, those ships could boost the company's flight cadence to more than one flight per month, Colglazier has said in previous earnings calls.
An astronaut training campus is also part of Virgin Galactic's plans in New Mexico, although details on that site are sparse. The company's stock has trended up on the day following news of the private astronaut flight's timeframe, closing at a price of $4.02 after opening at $3.97, according to MarketWatch data.
