Virgin Galactic won’t take off until 2023
Virgin Galactic, the manned suborbital flight company part of Richard Branson’s group, announced during the presentation of its H1 2022 results that commercial flights will begin next year.
Michael Colglazier, CEO of Virgin Galactic, stated in this regard that «we are preparing to return to the skies. In the meantime, we have launched many initiatives to pursue long-term success. While our near-term plans call for launching commercial service in the second quarter of 2023, our fleet construction progress continues.»
The executive then proceeded to showcase the financial results for the second quarter of 2022. Highlights included a net loss of $111 million, a gross loss (EBITDA) that amounted to $93 million, up from $56 million in Q2 2021, and a free cash flow of $91 million.
On the operational side, Colglazier recalled several events in the past half-year that were extremely important for Virgin. First, on July 6, Aurora Flight Sciences (a Boeing subsidiary) was selected as the builder of two new motherships, with the first scheduled to enter service in 2025. On the 14th of the same month, work began on the new manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona. This plant is expected to have the capacity to produce up to six spacecraft per year and could be fully operational by the end of 2023.
Virgin, so far, has not made any commercial flights. On July 11, 2021 -in the company’s only operation to date- Virgin owner Richard Branson and five other crew members reached an altitude of 88 kilometers above the New Mexico desert, enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth.
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