{"id":52236,"date":"2025-08-08T06:20:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52236\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T06:20:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T06:20:06","slug":"virgin-galactic-delays-the-launch-of-its-delta-spaceplane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/52236\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Galactic Delays the Launch of Its Delta Spaceplane"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe new age of space tourism<\/a> hasn\u2019t arrived quite yet.<\/p>\n

\n\tRichard Branson\u2019s Virgin Galactic<\/a> is delaying the launch of its much-anticipated Delta spacecraft<\/a>, a vessel for both tourists and research opportunities to reach suborbital flight. The craft was set to debut in summer 2026 but is now slated for the fall of that year, Bloomberg<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe British American company has paused all commercial operations since June 2024 in anticipation of the Delta commercial flight\u2019s launch next year, after which tourism trips will resume. The updated timeline follows quarterly financial results that fell short of analysts\u2019 expectations.<\/p>\n

\n\tVirgin Galactic<\/a> reported about $410,000 in revenue for the second quarter, slightly below the $420,000 forecasted by analysts polled by Bloomberg<\/a>. The company also reduced the size of its in-house engineering team and overall workforce by 7 percent as it fights to bring to market the upgraded Delta spaceplane.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Virgin Galactic stock has been down roughly 35 percent for the year, shares rose 2.1 percent in US postmarket trading this week\u2014a relief for investors who expected a greater loss per share of $2.34 compared to the actual $1.47 dip.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to the halt in operations, Virgin Galactic had been selling seats on the Delta spacecraft for around $600,000, and said it plans to raise prices when ticket sales resume at the start of 2026, according to Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company\u2019s current focus is on developing the upgraded spaceplane, which is being optimized for reusability and faster turnaround time between flights\u2014perhaps an effort to compete with rival commercial space tech companies like Jeff Bezos\u2019s Blue Origin LLC<\/a> or Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX<\/a>. In all cases, flights are sold as short trips to space for sightseeing or research.<\/p>\n

\n\tVirgin Galactic told Bloomberg that it burned through roughly $55 million in cash during the second quarter, down from around $79 million during the same period last year. It had cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities of $508 million as of the end of June.<\/p>\n

\n\tHopefully, Virgin Galactic can unveil a groundbreaking Delta spaceplane next fall in the wake of ongoing delays. While it\u2019s unclear what the availability and pricing of the commercial flights will be, one thing is certain: We can\u2019t hop on just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The new age of space tourism hasn\u2019t arrived quite yet. Richard Branson\u2019s Virgin Galactic is delaying the launch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,3148,44,128,285,43774,39950,43775],"class_list":["post-52236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-aviation","tag-news","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-tourism","tag-spaceplanes","tag-virgin-galactic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}