Virgin Galactic
Space tourism company
Follow Virgin Galactic on Notably News to receive short updates to your email — rarely!
| February 2025 | Estimated ticket price for a seat reached approximately $600,000. |
| 2025 | Virgin Galactic plans to have generation 2 motherships ready for next-generation Delta-class spaceplanes. |
| 2024 | VSS Unity was retired from service after several years of operation. |
| June 2024 | Galactic 07 was the final flight of Unity, marking the company's shift to Delta class vehicles and a higher launch cadence. |
| 2023 | Boeing ended work on the mothership contract with Virgin Galactic and subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company for unpaid bills. |
| 2023 | Virgin Orbit ceased operations following bankruptcy. |
| September 8 2023 | Virgin Galactic launched Galactic 03 (G03), a crewed sub-orbital spaceflight using the VSS Unity spacecraft. This was the company's third commercial spaceflight and eighth overall spaceflight, marking a significant milestone in private space tourism. |
| August 10 2023 | Galactic 02 was launched as Virgin Galactic's second commercial spaceflight and seventh overall spaceflight, carrying the first space tourists who were not working during the flight aboard the VSS Unity spacecraft. |
| June 2023 | Launched its first commercial space tourism flight called Galactic 01. |
| June 29 2023 | Virgin Galactic completed its first commercial spaceflight with three outside passengers. The 70-minute mission was purchased by the Italian Air Force and the Italian National Research Council, marking the company's official entry into commercial space tourism. |
| July 2022 | Virgin Galactic announced a partnership with Boeing's Aurora Flight Sciences to design and build the next generation of mothership for Delta-class spaceplanes. |
| February 2022 | Virgin Galactic announced opening ticket sales to the public, with a reservation price of $450,000. |
| October 14 2021 | Virgin Galactic announced an upgrade program for Unity and Eve, delaying future commercial flights to mid-2022. |
| July 20 2021 | Blue Origin conducted its first crewed flight, carrying Jeff Bezos, his brother, aviation legend Wally Funk, and first paying customer Oliver Daemen (a Dutch teenager). |
| July 11 2021 | Founder Richard Branson and three other employees rode on VSS Unity 22, marking the first time a spaceflight company founder traveled on his own ship into outer space. |
| May 22 2021 | Mothership Eve carried VSS Unity spacecraft to a launch altitude of 44,000 feet during a significant space tourism mission for Virgin Galactic. |
| May 22 2021 | VSS Unity completed its sixth powered test flight, reaching 89 km altitude and marking the first human spaceflight from New Mexico. Piloted by CJ Sturkow and Dave MacKay. |
| March 30 2021 | Virgin Galactic rolled out its first Spaceship III spacecraft, VSS Imagine, marking a significant milestone in the company's space tourism vehicle development. The spacecraft was prepared for ground testing, with planned glide test flights expected to begin no earlier than Summer 2021. |
| 2020 | Virgin Galactic's options for 10 Boom Technology XB-1 supersonic aircraft units expired. |
| February 2020 | Virgin Galactic transferred VSS Unity to Spaceport America in New Mexico and conducted two 15 km altitude test flights. |
| 2019 | The company underwent mergers and acquisitions, becoming part of a special-purpose acquisition company. |
| October 28 2019 | Virgin Galactic listed on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol 'SPCE', becoming the first publicly traded space tourism company. The company raised $450 million through a SPAC merger, with a market value exceeding $2.4 billion. |
| February 2019 | VSS Unity VF-01 carried three people, including a passenger, with a team member floating within the cabin during the spaceflight. |
| January 24 2019 | Virgin Galactic announced a strategic partnership with Under Armour to design and fabricate specialized space suits for SpaceShipTwo passengers and pilots, as well as uniforms for employees at Spaceport America. |
| December 13 2018 | VSS Unity achieved its first suborbital space flight (VSS Unity VP-03), with two pilots reaching outer space by U.S. standards. |
| April 5 2018 | VSS Unity performed its first powered test flight since 2014. |
| 2017 | Virgin Galactic conducted its initial public offering (IPO) and became listed on the New York Stock Exchange. |
| 2017 | XCOR Aerospace, a competitor in rocket-powered aircraft development, closed its doors after more than a decade of working on the Lynx suborbital vehicle. |
| 2017 | Cosmic Girl Boeing 747 mothership was transferred from Virgin Galactic to Virgin Orbit. |
| March 2017 | Virgin Galactic spun off its LauncherOne team into a new company called Virgin Orbit. |
| 2016 | Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft was reflown unmanned above the Karman line. |
| 2016 | Virgin Galactic, TSC, and the Virgin Group began collaboration with Boom Technology to develop a supersonic trans-oceanic passenger jetliner. |
| 2016 | VSS Unity, a SpaceShipTwo spacecraft, was commissioned and remained in service until its retirement in 2024. |
| December 2016 | VSS Unity completed its first free flight glide test, lasting ten minutes. |
| October 2016 | Mike Moses replaced Steve Isakowitz as president of Virgin Galactic. Isakowitz moved to Aerospace Corp. to become president and CEO, while Moses was promoted from VP Operations. |
| February 19 2016 | VSS Unity was rolled out as a replacement for the crashed VSS Enterprise spacecraft. |
| 2015 | New Shepard spacecraft by Blue Origin first flew unmanned above the Karman line and successfully landed. |
| 2015 | Virgin Galactic commissioned the Cosmic Girl, a Boeing 747 mothership, which was later transferred to Virgin Orbit in 2017. |
| 2015 | Virgin Galactic began shifting focus towards developing a smallsat launch vehicle, eventually spinning off this business into Virgin Orbit in 2017. |
| July 28 2015 | NTSB hearing in Washington D.C. concluded that the crash was caused by inadequate design safeguards, poor pilot training, and lack of FAA oversight. The board determined that the co-pilot prematurely unlocked the movable tail section, leading to the craft's disintegration. |
| June 25 2015 | Virgin Galactic signed a contract with OneWeb Ltd. for 39 satellite launches, with an option for an additional 100 launches. |
| March 2015 | Virgin Galactic established a research, development, and manufacturing center for LauncherOne at Long Beach Airport. |
| January 2015 | Virgin Group announced an investment into OneWeb satellite constellation, with Virgin Galactic set to take a share of satellite launch contracts using the LauncherOne system. |
| November 2 2014 | U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Christopher Hart publicly commented on the investigation, noting that the tail system was incorrectly deployed while the craft was traveling at Mach 1, instead of the intended speed of 1.4 times the speed of sound. |
| October 31 2014 | VSS Enterprise rocket-powered test flight ended in a catastrophic crash in the Mojave desert, California. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed, and pilot Peter Siebold was seriously injured. The crash occurred during the first test of SpaceShipTwo with new plastic-based fuel, with the craft breaking apart mid-air due to an apparent premature deployment of the air braking system. |
| September 2014 | Branson described the intended date for first commercial flight as February or March 2015. |
| September 16 2014 | NASA awarded commercial crew contracts to SpaceX and Boeing for developing spacecraft to bring crews to orbit. |
| July 24 2014 | Sierra Nevada Corporation confirmed they had also abandoned the nitrous-oxide-rubber motor for their Dream Chaser space shuttle. |
| June 2014 | Virgin announced they were in talks with Google about potential capital injection to fund development and operations. |
|
We are only showing the most recent entries for this topic. |
|
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles Galactic 03, Galactic 02 & Virgin Galactic, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.