Dive Brief:
- Virgin Galactic plans to begin final assembly work for its commercial Delta spaceships in Q1 2025 at its recently completed Mesa, Arizona, manufacturing facility, the company announced earlier this month.
- The space tourism company is preparing the facility to receive and install tooling by Q4 this year, with sub-assembly for components such as the wing, fuselage and feathering system arriving next year to build the first two ships.
- Once the spaceships are completed, they will undergo ground testing before being ferried to Spaceport America in Sierra County, New Mexico, for flight tests. Commercial operations are expected to begin in 2026.
Dive Insight:
Virgin Galactic is testing out the emerging industry of space tourism — human spaceflight for private individuals and researchers with its advanced air and 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 Virgin Galactic President and CEO Michael Colglazier.
The company is building on the success of its previous generation VSS Unity space plane. The plane completed its 12th and final flight to space on June 8 carrying one researcher and three private astronauts. Virgin Galactic also produces the “mothership” model VMS Eve, a four-engine, dual fuselage jet carrier aircraft focused on bringing its other spacecraft to release altitude, according to the company.
The multi-use facility includes two hangars with multiple bays and uses digital twin technology for real-time collaboration and increased efficiency between Virgin Galactic and its suppliers.
The Delta spaceships will seat up to six private passengers and are expected to be able to fly up to eight missions per month, according to the press release.
Virgin Galactic opened another ground testing facility in Southern California for Delta subsystems in May, according to the release. The California facility will use a testing method called “iron bird,” a full-scale mockup of an aircraft to test all of the systems’ integration.
