More on Virgin Galactic...

[PHXPhlyer]

Virgin Galactic to launch its 1st commercial spaceflight on June 29
By Elizabeth Howell published 1 day ago
Virgin Galactic's space plane last flew in July 2021.

https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-s ... SmartBrief

Virgin Galactic has set a launch date for its first commercial spaceflight.

The company, a part of billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Group, announced Monday (June 26) that it will send three Italians and a Virgin Galactic flight instructor to space no earlier than Thursday (June 29), two days later than a previous estimate.

A livestream of the flight will run here at Space.com, through Virgin Galactic, if possible. Events will begin at 11 a.m. EDT (1600 GMT, or 9 a.m. local time in New Mexico) on June 29. The mission will launch from New Mexico's Spaceport America, where Virgin Galactic hosts a commercial hub.

Virgin Galactic's spaceflight system will also include four pilots on its two vehicles: Two pilots aboard the carrier plane VMS Eve that will fly high in Earth's atmosphere, and two pilots aboard the SpaceShipTwo space plane VSS Unity that will go to suborbital space with the four passengers.

The passengers include:

Pantaleone Carlucci, an engineer at the National Research Council of Italy;
Colin Bennett, an astronaut instructor at Virgin Galactic;
Col. Walter Villadei of the Italian Air Force, who is training for a "future orbital space mission" to the International Space Station, according to Virgin Galactic materials;
Lt. Col. Angelo Landolfi, a physician with the Italian Air Force.
The pilots of VMS Eve include:

Kelly Latimer, commander
Jameel Janjua, pilot
The pilots of VSS Unity include:

Mike Masucci
Nicola Pecile
The mission, called Galactic 01, is in support of a joint Italian Air Force and National Research Council (of Italy) research effort called "Virtute 1."

The 90-minute flight will see the cabin of VSS Unity "transformed into a suborbital science lab to provide the environment for rack mounted payloads and for the crew to interact with wearable payloads," according to Virgin Galactic materials.

The science will include 13 experiments (a mix of autonomous and guided ones) that will study fluid dynamics and sustainable materials for medical applications.

A typical flight profile sees Eve leaving the runway with Unity under its wings. At 50,000 feet (15,000 meters), Eve drops Unity to fly on its own. Unity subsequently ignites its rocket motor to fly to suborbital space. The four crew members aboard Unity will then have a few minutes of weightlessness during which they will see Earth's curvature against the blackness of space before gliding back to Earth.
Unity has a maximum capacity of six passengers. It has already flown five times to suborbital space, most recently on May 25. Prior to that jaunt, it had last flown in July 2021 before Virgin Galactic grounded Unity and Eve for maintenance and upgrade work meant to allow the vehicles to fly more often for commercial service.

Should Galactic 01 go to plan, Unity and Eve will fly again relatively quickly: The second flight, called Galactic 02, is "planned for early August, with monthly commercial flights thereafter," according to a previous Virgin Galactic announcement last week.

Joining a mission will require a lot of money, as a ticket aboard VSS Unity costs $450,000. No earlier than 2026, Virgin Galactic will launch a set of new "Delta-class" space planes capable of flying to space once a week.

The company is competing against Blue Origin, the spaceflight company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle hasn't launched since September 2022, when it suffered an anomaly during an uncrewed research flight.

PP

[OneHungLow]

You're not the only one.

Space tourism companies might learn a lesson from the Titan sub disaster. But are they ready to listen?
"It is exactly the kind of scenario that would trigger a big discussion if it were to happen in a space tourism flight."

PP

I really hope I am wrong, but you can't buck rigour in this game, and keeping your fingers crossed and thinking of England, or wherever, ain't going to cut it in a game that finally turns out to be one of chance and not of design... spin that chamber and pull the trigger enough times and you will bite the bullet


One a happier note, I post this in memory of where it all started...

Virgin Galactic’s plan to fly SpaceShipTwo’s first commercial suborbital flight next week falls near the anniversary of the first spaceflight by its predecessor, SpaceShipOne, on June 21, 2004. Here’s a look back at that day nearly two decades ago.

A Look Back at SpaceShipOne’s Inspirational First Flight to Space

[PHXPhlyer]

I was at the EAA AirVenture in 2005 and got to see SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnight on display on the way to deliver SpaceShipOne to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. I was inside the exhibit hall and missed seeing them land.
I was also at the Theater in the Woods the night that Mike Melville and Brian Bennie IIRC were awarded "Airman of the Year".
That same night Richard Branson announced the formation of Virgin Galactic and Burt Rutan announced that he would build SpaceShipTwo for the venture.
I have also seen SpaceShipOne in its new home at the Air & Space Museum.

PP

[OneHungLow]

I was at the EAA AirVenture in 2005 and got to see SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnight on display on the way to deliver SpaceShipOne to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. I was inside the exhibit hall and missed seeing them land.
I was also at the Theater in the Woods the night that Mike Melville and Brian Bennie IIRC were awarded "Airman of the Year".
That same night Richard Branson announced the formation of Virgin Galactic and Burt Rutan announced that he would build SpaceShipTwo for the venture.
I have also seen SpaceShipOne in its new home at the Air & Space Museum.

PP

I have only visited the Air & Space Museum once, back in the mid 1990's.. A profoundly impressive museum.

[OneHungLow]

Waiting on the Virgin Galactic Livestream.





Seemed like a good flight.

[PHXPhlyer]

I have only visited the Air & Space Museum once, back in the mid 1990's.. A profoundly impressive museum.

The annex at Dulles (The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center) is far larger and has a much broader collection.
I have visited 4 or 5 times on layovers there but not in 12 or 15 years. They were still building out the collection, moving more of the collection that had been stored at the Silver Hill, MD restoration facility, that had not been able to be displayed due to space availability.

https://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center

PP

[Boac]

10/10 for persistence to RB and his team in getting this going despite the setbacks.

[PHXPhlyer]

Virgin Galactic reveals three passengers who will be aboard its first space tourism flight

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/17/world/vi ... index.html

The first Olympian and the first mother-daughter duo to venture to space will be aboard Virgin Galactic’s inaugural private astronaut mission in August.

Entrepreneur and health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her daughter Anastatia Mayers won their seats during a draw that raised $1.7 million in grants for Space for Humanity, a nonprofit focused on expanding access to space. The duo will become the first people from the Caribbean islands to travel to space.

“When I was two years old, just looking up to the skies, I thought, ‘How can I get there?’ But, being from the Caribbean, I didn’t see how something like this would be possible,” Schahaff said in a news release. “The fact that I am here, the first to travel to space from Antigua, shows that space really is becoming more accessible.”

Mayers, 18, is currently a second-year undergraduate studying philosophy and physics at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. She is aiming to be the second-youngest person to travel to space.

Jon Goodwin, who competed as a canoeist in the 1972 Munich Games, is 80 years old and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014. Goodwin is aiming to be the second person with the condition to travel to space.

“When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2014, I was determined not to let it stand in the way of living life to the fullest,” Goodwin said in the news release. “And now for me to go to space with Parkinson’s is completely magical. I hope this inspires all others facing adversity and shows them that challenges don’t have to inhibit or stop them from pursuing their dreams.”

Goodwin was one of the early ticket holders for a trip to space with Virgin Galactic.

The company, founded in the early 2000s, has sold about 800 tickets, including 600 at prices up to $250,000 and another couple hundred at $450,000 per ticket.

The trio will be joined by Beth Moses, the company’s chief astronaut instructor. Moses has been to space three times with Virgin Galactic and in 2019 became the first person to fly to space as a passenger on a commercial space vehicle.

Virgin Galactic and commercial spaceflight
The flight window opens for the mission, dubbed Galactic 02, on August 10, and the launch will stream live on Virgin Galactic’s website.

The announcement comes on the heels of the successful launch and landing of Virgin Galactic’s first commercial spaceflight on June 29.

The flight — a research mission that lasted about an hour and a half — carried Italian Air Force-funded passengers more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth’s surface to conduct a variety of experiments during a few minutes of weightlessness.

The passengers boarded the VSS Unity, attached to a massive aircraft called VMS Eve, at Virgin Galactic’s spaceport in New Mexico. VMS Eve took off like an airplane, delivering VSS Unity to a designated altitude. Then, VSS Unity fired its rocket engine and reached supersonic speeds as it ventured to the edge of space before descending to land on the runway.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Virgin Galactic's first space tourism flight launches Thursday with a mother-daughter duo and an 80-year-old Olympian. Here's how to watch.

https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-v ... ian-2023-8

Virgin Galactic plans to launch its first space tourist flight on Thursday.
Passengers include a raffle-winning mother-daughter duo and an 80-year-old Olympian.
The Olympian, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2005, purchased his ticket 18 years ago.

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is planning to send tourists to the edge of space this week in a mission that has been more than two decades in the making.

The company's Galactic 02 mission is due to take off from New Mexico's Spaceport America on Thursday.

On board will be a mother and daughter who only found out they had won tickets to travel to space when Sir Richard turned up at their home.

They will be accompanied by an 80-year-old Olympian who purchased his ticket 18 years ago for $250,000.

Tune in on Thursday to watch a livestream of the flight, which will start at around 11:00 a.m. ET:


Who are Virgin Galactic's first space tourists?
The crew includes 80-year-old Jon Goodwin and mother-daughter duo Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers.

A photo montage shows the crew for the Galactic 02 Virgin Galactic spaceflight.
These are the first commercial passengers to fly aboard Virgin Galactic's first private commercial spaceflight, due to take off Thursday. Virgin Galactic
Goodwin competed in the 1972 Munich games as a canoeist and is due to be the first Olympian to travel to the edge of space.

The 80-year-old, who purchased his ticket in October 2005 for $250,000, told Sky News he "certainly did" worry it would never happen. He was the fourth person to grab a ticket, he said.

"I always owned fast cars, and to accelerate, as we will do, from nought to Mach 1 in 8.5 seconds, 770 miles an hour, will be extremely exciting," he said.
Goodwin was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2005 and will be only the second person with the condition to go to space, according to Virgin Galactic.

Keisha Schahaff won her tickets through a raffle while on a Virgin flight from Antigua to London in 2021.

Months later, she got a surprise visit from Sir Richard at her home in the Caribbean. "The whole team just swarmed into my house saying 'You're the winner, you're going to space,'" Schahaff told the BBC.

The health and wellness coach decided to bring along her 18-year-old daughter Anastatia Mayers, a second-year philosophy and physics student at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was on the trip to sort out a visa for her daughter's education that Schahaff entered the raffle.

This will be the first time a mother-daughter duo will fly to space, and Mayers is due to be only the second youngest person to go to space, per Virgin Galactic.

"For me and my daughter together, it's more than a dream come true," said Schahaff.

The passengers will be joined by Beth Moses, Chief Astronaut Instructor for Virgin Galactic.

What can these passengers expect during the flight?
This is Virgin Galactic's second commercial flight and the first to carry paying customers. Galactic 01 took off on June 29, carrying a three-person crew from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy.

Richard Branson in space aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket plane.
Richard Branson floats in space on board a Virgin Galactic rocket plane. Virgin Galactic
If all goes to plan, the spaceship known as VSS Unity, will take off attached to a "mothership" aircraft that will carry it to an altitude of 50,000 feet. The spaceship will then detach and ignite its rocket motor to shoot up to space.

After reaching its peak, around 300,000 feet above Earth, the ship will start falling back down. Passengers will experience a brief few minutes of microgravity as the vessel reenters Earth's atmosphere and glides back down to the surface. The whole trip should take about 90 minutes.

Virgin Galactic's Galactic 01
A shot of the outside of Galactic 01 during its first commercial spaceflight. Virgin Galactic
The passengers are now in New Mexico undergoing a 5-day readiness program ahead of the flight designed to prepare them "physically, mentally and spiritually" for the trip, per Virgin Galactic's website.

Virgin Galactic has long come into fire as more than 800 ticket holders are waiting for their turn on the flight, which reportedly includes billionaire Elon Musk.

Tickets are being advertised for up to $450,000 a flight, Insider previously reported.

The company has recently stirred controversy for flying its first commercial flight less than a week after OceanGate Expedition's Titan submersible killed five paying customers on board a tourist trip to the Titanic shipwreck.

Virgin Galactic has previously said it plans to send tourists to space three times a month once its operations are up and running.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Richard Branson sends Virgin Galactic shares plunging after he says he’s not putting any more money in

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/04/business ... index.html

CNN
—
Shares of Virgin Galactic, the space tourism venture founded by Richard Branson, are plunging after the British billionaire said he has no plans to invest more money in the company as he says it has “sufficient funds” already.

As of the 9 a.m. ET market open on Monday, Virgin Galactic stock was down 16%, trading at less than $2 per share.

Virgin Galactic has had a landmark year, flying its first customers to the edge of space after years of waiting. But the company has also been in a state of flux, having just laid off about 20% of its staff and working to introduce a new line of suborbital spacecraft that will supplant the vehicle it’s spent more than a decade developing.

Branson was quoted in an article posted by the Financial Times on Sunday as saying that his investment company — Virgin Group — hasn’t been in the best financial shape because of the pandemic.

But, he said, “Virgin Galactic has got $1 billion, or nearly,” he told the Times. “It should, I believe, have sufficient funds to do its job on its own.”

As of Virgin Galactic’s latest financial filing, posted in November, it had about $1.1 billion in cash and securities.

That’s enough funds to keep the company afloat until it debuts its new, larger line of rocket-powered planes — called Delta — that can fly wealthy thrill seekers and other paying customers to the edge of space. The new line of spacecraft is expected to debut in 2026, according to a Virgin Galactic news release.

These Virgin Galactic ticket holders have waited more than a decade. Now they’ve finally gone to space
But the company also said in its financial filings that it had laid off about 185 workers, or about 18% of its employees, on November 7.

Branson had previously sold off a large chunk of his personal investment in Virgin Galactic, ditching about $1 billion worth of stock between 2020 and 2021. But Virgin Group, an investment group that functions mostly as a manager of Branson’s personal investments, remains one of Virgin Galactic’s biggest shareholders, the company confirmed.

After Branson himself joined one of the first crewed flights to space aboard the company’s rocket-powered space plane, dubbed the VSS Unity, in 2021 — Virgin Galactic kicked off regular commercial service in 2023.

So far this year, the company has launched six groups of passengers to the edge of space, including test pilots, paying customers, honorary guests and Virgin Galactic employees.

But in its November financial report, the company said it would slow down its cadence and start sending customers to space on VSS Unity quarterly rather than once per month.

The next VSS Unity mission — Galactic 06 — is slated for January 2024.

But later next year, the company plans to halt flights of VSS Unity altogether as it works to ready its new line of Delta spaceplanes, according to Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier’s comments to investors in November.

Branson added in his comments to the Financial Times that he remains excited about Virgin Galactic and noted the company has “really proved itself and the technology.”

Delta-class financials

https://spacenews.com/virgin-galactic-l ... -to-space/

Virgin Galactic used much of the earnings call to talk not about the upcoming Unity 25 flight but development of its Delta class of next-generation suborbital spaceplanes. The company provided new details about the economics of those vehicles.

“The Delta class will be the driver of revenue growth and profitability for the company,” said Doug Ahrens, chief financial officer, on the call. “We expect very attractive margins from the operation of our six-seat Delta class vehicles.”

With a ticket price of at least $450,000 per customer, Virgin Galactic expects to generate a minimum of $2.7 million in revenue per flight. The operating costs per flight are about $400,000, which include the costs of flying both the spaceplane and its mothership as well as training and hospitality costs for its astronauts. The company projects the amortized cost of each Delta-class spaceplane at $100,000 to $120,000 per flight, based on a production cost of $50 million to $60 million and estimated lifetime of 500 flights.

If those numbers hold, Ahrens said that would result in healthy profit margins. With a flight rate of once per week, each Delta-class vehicle would pay for itself in about six months, he projected.

“With such attractive economics associated with the Delta class, we remain laser-focused on the production of the program,” he said.

However, it will be several years before Virgin Galactic will be able to reap those benefits. Colglazier said the company is spending this year finalizing the design of the vehicle, which will have the same outer mold line as Unity but with changes to its composite structure and upgrades to other systems, like avionics. That will make the vehicle lighter and faster to turn around between flights.

The company expects to start assembling the first Delta-class vehicles at a new factory near Phoenix in 2024, with test flights in 2025. Commercial service with the first Delta-class vehicles is projected to start in 2026.

Executives said they were watching their cash flow to ensure they have enough money to get there. The company reported a net loss of $159.4 million in the first quarter with only negligible revenue. The company’s net loss was $93 million in the first quarter of 2022, with increased research and development costs for its Delta-class vehicle a key factor in the steeper loss.

Virgin Galactic is taking steps to reduce its cash burn. The end of overhaul work on VMS Eve and VSS Unity will reduce some spending. The company is also pushing back work on new mothership aircraft that will be used with the Delta-class spaceplanes, delaying expenditures on them by about a year.

Colglazier said they concluded that VMS Eve would be sufficient to handle the test flight campaign for the Delta-class vehicles in 2025, meaning that the new aircraft would not be needed until those spaceplanes begin commercial service in 2026.

“We’re quite happy with how Eve came through the modification program,” he said, and has the capacity to both support Unity commercial flights and Delta-class test flights in 2025. Deferring work on the future motherships enables “a more consistent cash burn going through the next couple years.”

The company ended the quarter with $874 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities on hand. “Clearly, the current economic environment demands operational flexibility,” Ahrens said, calling moves like delaying work on the future motherships “effective levers that can be employed to manage costs.”


PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Virgin Galactic grounded after a small part fell off vehicle during latest space tourism flight

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/05/world/vi ... index.html


Virgin Galactic is grounded after the company said a small part unintentionally detached from the mothership of its rocket-powered space plane on its latest space tourism flight.

The loss of the part, called an alignment pin, did not impact the safety of the mission, according to the company. The flight, called Galactic 06, launched on January 26 and marked Virgin Galactic’s first space tourism mission of the year after entering commercial service in 2023.

The company discovered the part loss during routine checks and notified government regulators on January 31, “in accordance with regulations,” Virgin Galactic said in a statement.

The pin was located on the underbelly of Virgin Galactic’s mothership, called VMS Eve, which is a twin-fuselage plane designed to carry the space plane, VMS Unity, under its wings to a high altitude before VMS Unity is released and vaults toward the edge of space.

The alignment pin “helps ensure the spaceship is aligned to the mothership when mating the vehicles on the ground during pre-flight procedures,” the company said in a Monday statement.

The pin also helps transfer “drag and other forces” from the space plane to the support structure that cradles the rocket-powered plane as it rides attached to the VMS Eve mothership, according to the company.

Virgin Galactic said it will work alongside the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, on a review of the issue.

The FAA said in a statement that it will carry out a “mishap investigation” and that the agency “must approve Virgin Galactic’s final report, including the corrective actions” before the company can return to flight.
 
“A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety,” according to a statement from the agency. “In addition, Virgin Galactic must request and receive approval from the FAA to modify its license that incorporates the corrective actions and meets all other licensing requirements.”

Virgin Galactic could not be immediately reached for additional comment Monday evening.

Flight expectations
Broader attachment structures remained in place during the flight, Virgin Galactic added in the statement, noting that the alignment pin does “not support the spaceship’s weight, nor do they have an active function once the spaceship is released.”

The VMS Unity usually flies affixed to the VMS Eve mothership until it is soaring more than 45,000 feet (13,700 meters) above Earth’s surface. Once at altitude, the VMS Unity detaches from the mothership and ignites its rocket engine, swooping upward toward the edge of the atmosphere.

Overall, the Galactic 06 mission “was a safe and successful flight that was conducted in accordance with Virgin Galactic’s rigorous flight procedures and protocols,” the company said.

“Virgin Galactic flights occur in restricted airspace and at specific geographical launch locations that control the hazards to people or structures on the ground,” Virgin Galactic’s statement reads. “The Company also observed no damage to the spaceship or the mothership.”

The FAA is tasked with giving the final go-ahead for commercial companies hoping to launch rockets and spacecraft. The agency’s role in this process, however, is only to analyze the potential risk that a flight poses to the public, people or property — not the danger to passengers on board commercial space vehicles, according to a moratorium set to expire in March 2024.

The FAA routinely carries out mishap investigations with private companies after a flight failure or other issue during a commercial rocket launch.

Virgin Galactic said it will “provide a further update at the completion of the (joint FAA) review and will confirm the flight window for the ‘Galactic 07’ mission, which is planned for the second quarter of 2024.”

PP