What is Virgin Galactic up to?

It’s been a while since we’ve discussed the space tourism company after it retired its VSS Unity spaceplane last year. 2025 will be the year of building for Virgin Galactic; the company announced recently that work is already underway on its first Delta spaceplane.

On February 26, Virgin Galactic shared its Q4 earnings report with investors and the public. Alongside its earnings, which showed it had $657 million of cash and cash equivalents on hand, the company gave an update on the first Delta spaceplane’s progress.

The bulk of the company’s spending in 2024 was focused on tooling and equipment needed for Delta’s manufacturing and assembly, and it sounds like most of that is complete. This will reduce the amount of money the company is spending in 2025, extending that $657 million to fund the company into 2026.

A video released by Virgin Galactic shared that parts of the Delta spaceplane, including parts of the feather, fuselage, and oxidizer tank, have begun being manufactured. This month, those parts were expected to be sent to Virgin Galactic’s facility in Phoenix for assembly.

Virgin Galactic expects to have the vehicle built and ground-tested by the end of 2025, with the first flights beginning in 2026 and the first commercial flight by the end of that year.

Virgin Galactic announced Delta in 2022 as its next-generation spaceplane, eventually replacing its SpaceShipTwo fleet. While SpaceShipTwo’s VSS Unity could fly as much as once a month at the peak of Virgin Galactic’s launch cadence—way more than its competitor Blue Origin— that flight cadence wasn’t enough to be profitable.

The Delta Class of spaceplanes is expected to be able to fly as many as 500 missions multiple times a month. The company hopes to increase its cadence to as much as twice a week, carrying both tourists looking for a thrill ride and researchers studying the effects of microgravity.

So while Unity was a useful tool to get the company moving, it was grounded to save money and moved back into development mode on Delta.

The company is also toying with the idea of taking on another $300 million in funding to expand its fleet of Delta spaceplanes and Motherships. This could allow the company to reach its twice-a-week flight cadence in 2028 and achieve profitability faster.

Virgin Galactic is also looking at other ways to take advantage of its Mothership’s heavy lift and high-altitude flying capabilities, potentially selling services to governments for surveillance and research purposes.