After a series of successful commercial spaceflights in 2023 and earlier this year, Virgin Galactic is proudly boasting that it’s operation now accounts for about 5% of the very small number of people who have ever been into space.
At last week’s Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas, Chelsea Chang, VP Commercial Strategy and Corporate Development said that after a couple of decades in business, 2023 was a breakthrough year for Virgin Galactic having achieved a “unique milestone” with the start of “repeated and reliable spaceflights”.
“What do you do when you’ve done all the things on earth? This is the next frontier and where the human experience is headed,” she told Virtuoso travel advisors during the Globetrotting sessions.
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To date, Virgin Galactic has successfully operated seven spaceflights carrying 23 paying customers to space, and creating 37 Virgin Galactic astronauts.
“Putting that into context, in all of human history there have been just under 700 people who have been into space, and now, Virgin Galactic astronauts are 5% of the entire population in just a couple of years.”
“As we scale up, we’ll be expanding that astronaut population very, very soon.”
Chang said the Virgin Galactic Future Astronaut community – those in waiting – is “about 700 individuals from 60+ countries.”
Joining Chang at the Virgin Galactic stand during Globetrotting was Jamila Gilbert, Astronaut 007 from spaceflight Unity 25 on 25 May 2023. Gilbert profiled the experience and space flight to Virtuoso travel advisors, equipping them with the added knowledge of what a Future Astronaut can expect of the experience, including the exhilarating experience when dropped from Mothership Eve, and the rocket propulsion that follows as the spacecraft throttles into space.
“The 60-second rocket burn is absolutely intense but it is enthralling, and you prepare for it during your training week, so you know what to expect.”
The weightlessness experience for guests with Virgin Galactic last from 3.5 to 4.5 minutes.
Chang also confirmed work is progressing on the new Delta class spaceships. When the Delta-class spaceships are fully operational Virgin Galactic intends to operate its spaceflights as frequently as twice per week, she said. As previously reported here, the first commercial flights for those new spacecrafts are now expected in 2026. (More on the Delta class production below.)
For travel advisors, Virgin Galactic introduced a referral structure when booking clients of US$25,000, with a $15K upfront payment and the balance paid after the spaceflight.
Recently, Virgin Galactic elevated the cost of a seat on its 90 minute flight into space to a eye-watering US$600,000 – more than double the launch fare of a decade ago. (The travel advisor referral structure equates to about 4.25% of the cost).
Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic said its last commercial spaceflight on the ‘Galactic 07’ mission in June on VSS Unity delivered record per seat revenue of US$900,000. That mission was carrying three paying passengers from the US and Italy, along with an astronaut from the Turkish Space Agency which used the flight as a suborbital lab for space-based scientific research.
Also, last month Virgin Galactic completed its new manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona (Greater Phoenix area), where final assembly of its next-generation Delta spaceships are scheduled to take place starting in Q1 2025.
An initial team of Virgin Galactic technical operations and manufacturing personnel has begun preparing the facility to receive and install tooling, expected to arrive in Q4 2024. The facility will then begin to receive major subassemblies, including the wing, the fuselage, and the feathering system next year, as the team scales to build the first two ships of the Delta fleet.
Once ground testing is complete, Virgin Galactic’s mothership will ferry completed spaceships to Spaceport America, New Mexico for flight test ahead of commercial operations, which are expected to begin in 2026.
The multi-use facility includes two hangars equipped with multiple bays, designed for maximum flexibility in building and testing space vehicles.
“The completion of our new manufacturing facility is an important milestone in the development of our fleet of next-generation spaceships, the key to our scale and profitability,” said Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic CEO said recently. “Tooling will begin arriving in a matter of months to support spaceship final assembly, which we expect to commence in Q1 2025.”
Virgin Galactic’s Delta spaceships will seat up to six private passengers, and each is expected to be capable of flying up to eight missions per month, dramatically increasing access to space.
LATTE attended Virtuoso Travel Week as a guest of Virtuoso.
