{"id":898099,"date":"2026-10-28T23:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898099\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T23:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:52:14","slug":"meet-apeiron-virgin-galactics-1st-delta-class-space-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898099\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Apeiron, Virgin Galactic’s 1st ‘Delta-class’ space plane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virgin Galactic<\/a> revealed on Wednesday (Oct. 28). Apeiron (pronounced “A’-per-on,” according to the announcement) takes its name from the ancient Greek word meaning “boundless,” and was selected through a public poll that drew votes from thousands of people across 83 countries and six continents.<\/p>\n

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The reveal<\/a> comes on the same day that the space plane is scheduled to be flown from its manufacturing facility in Mesa, Arizona, to Spaceport America<\/a> in New Mexico, where the vehicle will undergo final preparations before beginning flight tests.<\/p>\n

Apeiron was one of four finalist names that Virgin Galactic narrowed down from a list of 276 employee-submitted suggestions. After the public weighed in, Apeiron came out on top over Horizon, Explorer and Ascend.<\/p>\n

\u201cApeiron, the Boundless, captures the ambition of human spaceflight and the possibilities it opens for humanity,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Golglazier said in a company statement. “The extraordinary response to the public vote made choosing this name even more meaningful.”<\/p>\n

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The shiny new space plane will be attached to Virgin Galactic’s VMS Eve carrier aircraft for its journey to Spaceport America, where engineers will complete work on its avionics software ahead of Apeiron’s first flight tests and eventual operational missions.<\/p>\n

The new Delta-class vehicle replaces Virgin’s earlier space plane model, VSS Unity<\/a>, which flew seven suborbital missions<\/a> during its operational lifetime between the summers of 2023 and 2024. The company suspended VSS Unity flights to focus efforts on Apeiron’s development, and now hopes to begin flying customers again in mid-2027.<\/p>\n

\"Space\"<\/p>\n

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Each Delta-class vehicle is equipped to accommodate up to six passengers. (Image credit: Virgin Galactic)<\/p>\n

Once they’re in regular operation, Virgin plans to fly each of its Delta-class vehicles as many as eight times a month. A second Delta-class space plane is already under construction and is expected to join Apeiron at Spaceport America around the same time that Virgin restarts flying passengers, about 675 of whom are still waiting<\/a> in line with tickets for a seat on one of the company’s suborbital jaunts, according to the company’s Q2 2026 SEC filing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, more than 100 of those future space travelers are beginning their initial preparations for flight, with more ticketholders expected to follow once Virgin brings the second Delta-class vehicle into service. When the company began selling seats<\/a> aboard its space plane in 2014, when VSS Unity was still under construction, tickets were priced around $200,000. Today, that price has jumped to $850,000 per seat, according to a report by Latte<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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(Image credit: Virgin Galactic)<\/p>\n

Like its predecessor, Apeiron and future Delta-class vehicles are designed for short, suborbital spaceflights, and are not capable of reaching orbit around Earth<\/a>. They fly above the internationally recognized boundary of space<\/a>, the 100-kilometer-high (62 miles) Karman line<\/a>, and provide those onboard with several minutes of weightlessness<\/a> and great views of the planet below.<\/p>\n

Virgin Galactic plans to share further details about its upcoming flight tests during its November earnings call.<\/p>\n

Virgin is one of two American companies that have flown paying customers to suborbital space and back. The other, Blue Origin<\/a>, suspended its flights earlier this year<\/a> to focus on helping land NASA astronauts on the moon<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Virgin Galactic has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[79,193],"class_list":["post-898099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}