Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flight is set for June as Richard Branson seeks to restore light

Billionaire Richard Branson’s space tourism venture Virgin Galactic Holdings, which has bravely sought to return to parity with Elon Musk who led SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, has finally announced the launch date of its cargo flight. the company’s first commercial customer. Over the last year or so, Virgin has been left behind by both SpaceX and Blue Origin due to numerous delays extending their flight schedules. The company sent Branson to space in July 2021, but failed to deliver on a widely anticipated follow-up commercial. The flight announcement was immediately welcomed by investors who pushed the stock higher.

Called Galactic 01, the long-awaited mission will take place on June 27. The company also revealed that it will include researchers from the Italian Air Force and its National Research Council. Italy. In fact, it will be a research flight.

Although Virgin has announced the date, it may not be flying on it, and the company may indeed be targeting a flight window between June 27 and June 30.

There’s some good news for the hundreds of space tourists who bought expensive tickets to fly aboard Virgin’s spacecraft.

Not only the first flight, the company has also revealed that it is planning to do a second flight, Galactic 02, as early as early August and then on a month-long mission.

Not sure, but instead of researchers, Galactic flight 02 was most likely carrying tourists.

As many as 800 people purchased tickets across 66 countries, CEO Michael Colglazier said in a statement.

So far, VSS Unity has been flown into space and returned 5 times.

The Virgin spacecraft is named VSS Unity and it will fly out of Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic shares jumped 40% to $5.68 as of 7:37 a.m. early New York commerce, Bloomberg report. This would be the biggest gain in two years if the stock holds up.