Virgin Galactic leases facility in Arizona to build up to six of its reusable suborbital space planes
Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic announced on July 14, 2022 that it has leased a new facility in Mesa, Arizona where it will build up to six of its reusable suborbital space planes, with the goal of beginning commercial flights by late 2025.
The Delta class spaceship is Virgin Galactic’s production vehicle that is designed to fly weekly, supporting the Company’s target of 400 flights per year from Spaceport America. Based on current schedules, the first of these ships is expected to commence revenue-generating payload flights in late 2025, progressing to private astronaut flights in 2026.
The Company is currently selecting various suppliers to build the spaceship’s major subassemblies, which will be delivered to the new Mesa facility for final assembly. Virgin Galactic motherships will ferry completed spaceships to Spaceport America, New Mexico for flight test and commercial operation.
Combined with its recent contract award to Aurora to build two new motherships, it appears the management that replaced Richard Branson at Virgin Galactic has found that it can’t really proceed with commercial operations with the ships Branson left behind. Apparently the company is working to replace everything, and will likely delay commercial operations another few years in the process.
These decisions might be smart, but considering the company’s long history of endless delays, the buying public and the investment community might not be willing to tolerate more delays. It also remains very questionable there is enough business to justify its prediction of 400 flights per year, even if the company loses no customers.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic announced on July 14, 2022 that it has leased a new facility in Mesa, Arizona where it will build up to six of its reusable suborbital space planes, with the goal of beginning commercial flights by late 2025.
The Delta class spaceship is Virgin Galactic’s production vehicle that is designed to fly weekly, supporting the Company’s target of 400 flights per year from Spaceport America. Based on current schedules, the first of these ships is expected to commence revenue-generating payload flights in late 2025, progressing to private astronaut flights in 2026.
The Company is currently selecting various suppliers to build the spaceship’s major subassemblies, which will be delivered to the new Mesa facility for final assembly. Virgin Galactic motherships will ferry completed spaceships to Spaceport America, New Mexico for flight test and commercial operation.
Combined with its recent contract award to Aurora to build two new motherships, it appears the management that replaced Richard Branson at Virgin Galactic has found that it can’t really proceed with commercial operations with the ships Branson left behind. Apparently the company is working to replace everything, and will likely delay commercial operations another few years in the process.
These decisions might be smart, but considering the company’s long history of endless delays, the buying public and the investment community might not be willing to tolerate more delays. It also remains very questionable there is enough business to justify its prediction of 400 flights per year, even if the company loses no customers.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
This, along with the other carrier plane subcontract announcement, feels like a desperate attempt to reassure what investors they’ve got left to stick with them. I can imagine conversations like this:
“It will just be a few more years—really—-trust us—and our grandiose plans will be fulfilled. We’re new management, and we’re serious this time”
If you have stock in this operation, it won’t be too long before it’s worthless. IMHO, of course.
His next project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrodDBJdGuo
https://up-ship.com/blog/?p=49854
I do not trust any of their designs.
Not the engines for the rocket or the carrier plane.
The aerodynamic design of the is just flawed. The time it crashed was because the wings became unlocked under powered flight and their only answer was ‘lets not let that happen again, we will put a lock on it’.
Both designs are left overs from Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites. None of Scaled craft ever went beyond single, one off production. No commercial successes or productions.
If Virgin survives long enough to go into full production these air frame designs will be 20 years old using 20 year old production and materials. If they come out of production unchanged. My bet is they will change significantly and would be very different.
This is essentially an all new company.
Jeff Wright: that “Sky Hotel” video is hilarious. It had me LOL. It has Sir Richard written all over it.
I rarely watch you tube links… But just had to this time! And LOLd my ass off…. Brilliant!
Scaled Composites was clear that the current WhiteKnightTwo was intended only to last for the development and maybe the beginning of operations. The current SpaceShipTwo was also largely intended to provide development but not be sufficient for all the operational needs of the company. If Branson left everyone with the impression that these two craft were all that Virgin Galactic needed, then the error is his, and any investors who believed him did not do sufficient due diligence before investing.
Total waste of money if it was only intended as a test vehicle. It more than likely will not even be its own design prototype.
pzatchok wrote: “Total waste of money if it was only intended as a test vehicle.”
Test articles are very important, especially for the 1more radically different designs. SpaceShipOne cannot be considered a test vehicle for SpaceShipTwo, as it was much more of a proof of concept unit.
There is the concept of the proto-qualification unit, which is usually a design that does not vary much from other (previous) designs, and it is used to test the limits of the expected operational range. SpaceShipTwo underwent many, many flights because it is finding the operational limits, not testing them. This is why SpaceShipTwo will not reach the Karman line but only the American-recognized edge of space (about three kilometers lower than von Karman’s calculated arbitrary edge of space).