The first commercial spaceflight for Virgin Galactic blasted off early Thursday, a long-awaited milestone for the space tourism company founded by billionaire Richard Branson in 2004. SPCE stock continued its fall Friday and dove Thursday following the successful mission. Shares rocketed Wednesday prior to launch.
The first Virgin Galactic spaceflight, dubbed Galactic 01, took off early June 29 out of Spaceport America in New Mexico, which hosts Virgin Galactic's commercial hub.
The VSS Unity released from the VMS Eve mothership at 11:29 a.m. EDT, slightly delayed from the scheduled 11 a.m. launch. Virgin Galactic uses "air launches," where a mothership carries the rocket plane to altitude and releases it for the official blast off.
Three crew members from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy, a Virgin Galactic instructor and two pilots, embarked on the 90-minute scientific research mission. The crew conducted microgravity research through 13 suborbital experiments at the edge of space.
The VSS Unity safely touched down on the runway at 11:43 a.m. EDT.
A livestream of the flight is available on Virgin Galactic's website as well as its YouTube channel.
Future Flights
Virgin Galactic completed its fifth and final VSS Unity test flight on May 25 after first unveiling the spacecraft in 2016.
The successful mission marks a milestone toward its goal of flying regular commercial spaceflights.
Virgin Galactic plans to launch its Galactic 02 mission in early August with private astronauts on board. Monthly commercial spaceflights are planned thereafter, the company said.
Virgin Galactic currently charges $450,000 per spaceflight according to its website. It has a backlog of 800 passengers queued for flights, CNBC previously reported.
Commercial Space Race
Tech billionaires including Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's SpaceX and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Stratolaunch Systems are all competing in the private commercial space race.
Blue Origin expects to resume launches for its New Shepard suborbital vehicle in the next few weeks once it receives FAA approval following a failure during a September 2022 payload-only flight.
SpaceX conducted its most recent Starlink mission on May 23 for its Falcon 9 rocket and lists 242 total launches on its website. Meanwhile, Musk is seeking a $150 billion valuation for SpaceX in a new sale of employee shares at $81 each, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
SPCE Stock
SPCE stock tumbled 8.2% Friday and dove 10.8% following the successful flight Thursday. Virgin Galactic stock rocketed 9.2% Wednesday prior to launch.
Shares tumbled 18.4% last Friday after Virgin Galactic filed to raise $400 million through a common stock offering. The company noted it also completed an "at the market" offering for $300 million in a separate filing Thursday. Virgin Galactic said it plans to use the funds to develop its spaceship fleet and scale up for commercial operations.
SPCE stock remain well below its 52-week high of 8.25 from August and trading at a fraction of its all-time high 62.80 from February 2021. Still, Virgin Galactic stock soared 11.6% so far this year.
You can follow Harrison Miller for more stock news and updates on Twitter @IBD_Harrison.
