Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. and with its subsidiaries (Virgin Galactic) is an aerospace and space travel company.
The company focuses on the development, manufacture and operation of spaceships and related technologies. The company provides access to space for private individuals, researchers and government agencies. The company's missions include flying passengers to space, as well as flying scientific payloads and researchers to space in order to conduct experiments for scientific and educ...
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. and with its subsidiaries (Virgin Galactic) is an aerospace and space travel company.
The company focuses on the development, manufacture and operation of spaceships and related technologies. The company provides access to space for private individuals, researchers and government agencies. The company's missions include flying passengers to space, as well as flying scientific payloads and researchers to space in order to conduct experiments for scientific and educational purposes.
The company offers access to space for private individuals, researchers and government agencies. The company’s operations include the design and development, manufacturing, ground and flight testing, spaceflight operation, and post-flight maintenance of its spaceflight system. The company’s spaceflight system was developed using its proprietary technology and processes and focuses on providing space travel experiences for private astronauts, researcher flights and professional astronaut training. The company has also leveraged its knowledge and expertise in manufacturing spaceships to occasionally perform engineering services for third parties.
The company offers its customers a unique, human-first spaceflight journey designed around each individual to maximize the transformative power of space travel, which includes a multi-day experience culminating in a spaceflight with several minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth from space. As part of its commercial operations, the company has exclusive access to the Gateway to Space facility at Spaceport America, located in New Mexico. Spaceport America is the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceflight launch site and training facility and is the base for the company's commercial spaceline operations.
In December 2018, the company made history by flying the company’s spaceship, VSS Unity, to space from Mojave, California. This represented the first flight of the company’s spaceflight system, which was built for commercial service to take humans into space routinely and safely, and designed with superior astronaut experience in mind. After relocating the company’s operations to Spaceport America, the company conducted the first flight to space from the state of New Mexico in May 2021. This flight also completed the data submission to the Federal Aviation Administration (‘FAA’), resulting in the approval for the expansion of the company’s commercial space transportation operator license to allow for the carriage of spaceflight participants. This marked the first time the FAA licensed a spaceline to fly customers and was further validation of the inherent safety of the company’s system.
In July 2021 the company completed the Unity-22 mission, the first spaceflight with a full crew of four mission specialists in the cabin, including the company’s Founder, Sir Richard Branson.
In June 2023, 'Galactic 01,' marked the start of commercial service. This flight was a dedicated research mission sponsored by the Italian government, which tested 13 experiments and demonstrated the company’s ability to use suborbital spaceflights to train astronauts for future orbital missions. 'Galactic 05' and 'Galactic 07' were also commercial research missions. These flights, along with the research experiments that were conducted on the company’s previous test flights to space, demonstrated the capability of the company’s spaceflight system to provide a ground-breaking platform to researchers.
In January 2024, 'Galactic 06' marked the completion of the company’s sixth commercial spaceflight in six months – a launch rate to space of a single vehicle that is both unprecedented and record-breaking. In June 2024, the company completed its seventh commercial spaceflight, 'Galactic 07.' This marked the final commercial flight for the company’s initial spaceship, VSS Unity.
The company is developing its next-generation spaceflight vehicles, which include its Delta Class spaceships and its next-generation motherships, both of which it expects will allow it to increase its annual flight rates. The company expects commencing flying with test flights of its new Delta Class spaceships in advance of restarting commercial service, which is expected to begin in 2026.
As of December 31, 2024, the company had reservations for approximately 700 future astronauts. Each ticket purchased delivers a unique, human-first spaceflight journey designed around each individual to maximize the transformative power of space travel. This includes a multi-day experience consisting of a comprehensive spaceflight training preparation program that culminates in a spaceflight that includes several minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth from space. Each ticket purchased also provides access to the company’s astronaut community, which offers opportunities to attend global events and experiences.
The company has developed an extensive portfolio of proprietary technologies embodied in the highly specialized assets that it has developed or leased to enable commercial spaceflight and address industry trends. These assets include:
The company’s carrier aircraft, the mothership. The mothership is a twin-fuselage, custom-built aircraft designed to carry the company’s spaceships up to an altitude of approximately 45,000 feet, where the spaceship is released for its flight into space. Using the mothership’s air launch capacity, rather than a standard ground-launch, reduces the energy requirements of the company’s spaceflight system as the spaceship does not have to ascend through the higher density atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. The company’s carrier aircraft is designed to launch hundreds of spaceship flights over its lifetime. This reusable launch platform design provides a flight experience and economics similar to commercial airplanes and offers an economic advantage over other potential launch alternatives. Additionally, the company’s carrier aircraft is designed to have a rapid turnaround time to enable it to provide frequent spaceflight launch services for multiple spaceships. During the third quarter of 2024, the company began deploying some of the company’s engineers from its spaceship program to work on the design of the company’s next-generation mothership.
The company’s spaceships. The spaceship is a vehicle with the capacity to carry pilots and private astronauts, research experiments and researchers that travel with their experiments for human-tended research flights, into space and return them safely to Earth. The spaceship is a rocket-powered winged vehicle designed to achieve a maximum speed of over Mach 3 and has a flight duration, measured from passenger boarding to the disembarkation, of approximately 90 minutes. The spaceship cabin has been designed to deliver a superior astronaut experience, maximizing astronaut safety and comfort. Twelve windows line the sides and ceiling of the spaceship, offering customers the ability to observe the stunning views of Earth from space as well as the vast blackness of space. Pilot-designed and pilot-flown missions aid safety and customer confidence, enhancing the unique Virgin Galactic spaceflight experience. With the exception of the rocket motor, which must be replaced after each flight, the spaceship is designed as a wholly reusable vehicle.
The company’s next-generation of spaceships – ‘Delta’ – are in development and anticipated to enter commercial service in 2026. These ships are ‘production model’ vehicles which build on the system and technology the company has proven with its initial vehicles, but designed and manufactured to allow for greater predictability, faster turnaround time and easier maintenance. Importantly, they feature six passenger seats (50% more than VSS Unity) and are expected to fly twice per week in steady-state operations, which the company expect will make them the highest-capacity and lowest-cost human-rated space vehicles ever created. In 2023, the company completed preliminary design review and tooling began for the company’s contractors to prepare for parts and materials fabrication. Following the 'Galactic 07' flight in June 2024, the company paused Unity spaceflights in order to focus the company’s resources on the acceleration of the Delta program. The Delta spaceships will be assembled in Arizona at the company’s new facility, which was completed in July 2024. The company is expected to commence flying with test flights of the company’s Delta Class spaceships in advance of commercial service, which is expected to begin in 2026.
The company’s hybrid rocket motor. The company’s spaceships are powered by a hybrid rocket propulsion system that propels them on a trajectory into space. The term ‘hybrid’ rocket refers to the fact that the rocket uses a solid fuel grain cartridge and a liquid oxidizer. The fuel cartridge is consumed over the course of a flight and replaced in between flights. The company’s rocket motor has been designed to provide performance capabilities necessary for suborbital spaceflight with a focus on safety, reliability and economy. Its design incorporates comprehensive critical safety features, including the ability to be safely shut down at any time, and its limited number of moving parts increases reliability and robustness for human spaceflight. Furthermore, the fuel is made from a benign substance that needs no special or hazardous storage.
Gateway to Space at Spaceport America. The company’s operational headquarters is where the company operate the company’s spaceflights and astronaut training. Spaceport America is located in New Mexico on more than 25 square miles of desert landscape, with access to 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace running from the ground to space. The restricted airspace will facilitate flight scheduling by preventing general commercial air traffic from entering the area. Additionally, the desert climate and its relatively predictable weather provide favorable launch conditions year-round. The company’s license from the FAA includes Spaceport America as a location from which the company can launch and land the company’s spaceflight system on a routine basis.
The company’s operations also include spaceflight opportunities for research and technology development. The company’s spaceflight system is intended to provide the scientific research community low cost, repeatable access to space and the microgravity environment. The company’s suborbital platform is an end-to-end offering, which includes not only its vehicles, but also the hardware, such as payload lockers that it provides to researchers that request them, along with the processes and facilities needed for a successful campaign. The platform offers a routine, reliable and responsive launch service allowing for experiments to be conducted rapidly and frequently and with the opportunity to be tended in-flight by one or more researchers. This capability will enable scientific experiments as well as educational and research programs to be carried out by a broader range of individuals, organizations and institutions than ever before. The company’s commitment to advancing research and science has been present in many of its spaceflights to date.
The company's first four spaceflights during the flight test program carried payloads into space for research purposes through NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. 'Galactic 01' – the company's first commercial spaceflight – was a government-funded flight that supported over a dozen research experiments and carried three mission specialists from the Italian Air Force and the National Research Council of Italy, who conducted human-tended research experiments. VSS Unity’s cabin served as a suborbital science lab, providing the environment for rack-mounted payloads and allowing the crew to interact with wearable payloads.
The company has also leveraged its knowledge and expertise in manufacturing spaceships to occasionally perform engineering services, such as research, design, development, manufacturing, and integration of advanced technology systems.
Commercial Space Industry
The company has developed an extensive set of integrated aerospace development capabilities for developing, manufacturing and testing aircraft, spacecraft, and related propulsion systems. These capabilities encompass preliminary systems and vehicle design and analysis, detail design, manufacturing, ground testing, flight testing and post-delivery support and maintenance. The company’s unique approach and rapid prototyping capabilities enable innovative ideas to be designed quickly, built and tested with process and rigor. In addition, the company has expertise in configuration management and developing documentation needed to transition the company’s technologies and systems to commercial applications. Further, the company has developed a significant amount of know-how, expertise and capability that the company can leverage to capture growing demand for innovative, agile and low-cost development projects for third parties, including contractors, government agencies and commercial service providers.
Strategy
Using the company’s proprietary and reusable flight system and supported by a distinctive, Virgin-branded customer experience, it seeks to build a scaled and profitable business providing safe, reliable and regular transportation to space. The key elements of the company’s strategy are to expand its spaceflight operations with more vehicles and significantly higher flight frequency per vehicle; and leverage its proprietary technology and deep manufacturing experience to augment its product and service offerings and expand into adjacent and international markets.
Assets
The company has developed an extensive portfolio of proprietary technologies that are embodied in the highly specialized vehicles that it has created to enable commercial spaceflight. These technologies underpin its carrier aircraft, the mothership; its spaceships; its hybrid rocket motor; and its safety systems. The company’s astronauts will interact with these technologies at Spaceport America, the first purpose-built commercial spaceport, and at its terminal hangar building, officially designated the ‘Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space.’
Carrier Aircraft—The Mothership
The mothership is a twin-fuselage, custom-built aircraft designed to carry spaceships up to an altitude of approximately 45,000 feet, where the spaceship is released for its flight into space. Using the mothership rather than a standard ground-launch rocket reduces the energy requirements for suborbital launch because the company’s spaceships are not required to propel their way through the higher density atmosphere nearer to the Earth’s surface.
The mothership’s differentiating design features include its twin-boom configuration, its single-piece composite main wing spars, its reusability as the first stage in the company’s space launch system, and its versatility as a flight training vehicle for its pilots and spaceships. The twin-boom configuration allows for a spacious central area between the two fuselages to accommodate a center wing launch pylon to which the spaceship can be attached. Both cabins of the mothership are constructed using the same tooling and are identical in shape and size to the spaceship cabin. The mothership is powered by four Pratt and Whitney Canada commercial turbo-fan engines. Spare parts and maintenance support are readily available for these engines, which have reliably been in service on the mothership since December 2008.
The mothership’s 140-foot main wing houses large air brakes that allow the mothership to mimic the spaceship’s aerodynamic characteristics in the gliding portions of the spaceship’s flight. This provides the company’s pilots with a safe, repeatable way to train for the spaceship’s final approach and landing.
The company's carrier aircraft is designed to launch hundreds of spaceship flights over its lifetime. As such, its spaceflight launch platform system offers a considerable economic advantage over other potential launch architectures. Additionally, the carrier aircraft has a rapid turnaround time, enabling it to provide frequent spaceflight launch services for multiple spaceships.
The mothership has completed an extensive, multi-year test program that included a combination of ground and flight tests. As of December 31, 2024, it had completed approximately 350 flights, with more than 50 of those being dual tests with the company's spaceships.
Spaceships
Virgin Galactic spaceships are reusable with the capacity to carry pilots and private astronauts, research experiments and researchers that travel with their experiments for human-tended research flights, into space and return them safely to Earth. The spaceship is a rocket-powered winged vehicle designed to achieve a maximum speed of over Mach 3 and has a flight duration, measured from passenger boarding to the disembarkation, of approximately 90 minutes.
The spaceship begins each mission by being carried to an altitude of approximately 45,000 feet by the mothership before being released. Upon release, the pilot ignites the hybrid rocket motor, which propels the spaceship on a near vertical trajectory into space. Once in space, astronauts enjoy amazing views and a weightlessness experience, and the pilots use the spaceship’s unique ‘wing-feathering’ feature in order to prepare the vehicle for re-entry. The feathering system works like a badminton shuttlecock, naturally orienting the spaceship into the desired re-entry position with minimal pilot input. This re-entry position uses the entire bottom of the spaceship to create substantial drag, thereby slowing the vehicle to a safe re-entry speed and reducing both heat and structural loads. Once the spaceship has descended back to an altitude of approximately 55,000 feet above sea level, the wings de-feather back to their normal position, and the spaceship glides back to the base for a runway landing, similar to NASA’s Space Shuttle or any other glider. The spaceship’s feathering system was originally developed and tested on SpaceShipTwo’s smaller predecessor, SpaceShipOne.
The company’s spaceship’s cabin has been designed to maximize customer safety and comfort. Twelve windows in the cabin line the sides and ceiling of the spaceship, offering astronauts the ability to view the black of space, as well as stunning views of the Earth below.
With the exception of the rocket motor, which must be replaced after each flight, the company’s spaceships are designed to be reusable. Like the mothership, its spaceship is constructed with all-composite material construction, providing beneficial weight and durability characteristics.
SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, has completed an extensive flight test program that began in March 2010 with the original SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise, which was built by a third-party contractor. The final flight test was conducted in May 2023 with the Unity-25 spaceflight, culminating in more than 50 test flights of the SpaceShipTwo configuration throughout the program. VSS Unity commenced commercial service in June 2023 and successfully completed seven commercial spaceflights. The company paused Unity spaceflights in mid-2024 and expect to commence flying with test flights of its Delta Class spaceships in advance of commercial service, which is expected to begin in 2026.
Hybrid Rocket Motor
The company’s spaceship is powered by a hybrid rocket propulsion system that propels it on a trajectory into space. The term hybrid rocket refers to the fact that the rocket uses a solid fuel grain and a liquid oxidizer. The fuel cartridge is consumed over the course of a flight, meaning that each spaceship flight will require the installation of a new hybrid rocket motor. The assembly of this fuel cartridge with the hybrid rocket motor is designed to be efficient and to support high rates of commercial spaceflight. In 2018, the company’s rocket motor set a Guinness world record as the most powerful hybrid rocket to be used in crewed flight. In February 2019, it was accepted into the permanent collection of the National Air and Space Museum.
The company’s rocket motor has been designed to provide the required mission performance capability with a focus on safety, reliability and economy. Its design benefits from critical safety features, including its ability to be shut down safely at any time during flight and its limited number of moving parts, which increases reliability and robustness for human spaceflight. Furthermore, the motor is made from a benign substance that needs no special or hazardous storage.
The company’s in-house propulsion team is in the process of upgrading its rocket motor production plant to increase the production rate and to reduce the unit production cost to accommodate planned growth in the spaceship fleet and drive increasingly attractive per-flight economics.
Safety Systems
The company has designed its spaceflight system with a fundamental focus on safety. The company’s rocket motor is a simple and robust, human-rated spaceflight rocket motor with no turbo-pumps or complicated machinery. The company’s unique wing feathering technology provides self-correcting capability that requires limited pilot input for its spaceship to align properly for re-entry. Each of the company’s astronauts will go through a customized medical screening and flight preparation process, including training for the use of communication systems, flight protocols, emergency procedures and G-force training. In addition, initial customer questionnaires and health assessments have been completed and are maintained in a comprehensive and secure medical database. Due to the company’s air-launch configuration and flight profile, mission abort capability exists at all points along the flight path and consists of aborts that mimic the normal mission profile. The company has an aviation Safety Management System (SMS) that is aligned with industry and regulatory standards contained in FAA SMS Advisory Circular 120-92B and 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 5, which advocates for a formal, top-down, and business-like approach to managing safety. The company’s SMS provides a framework designed to minimize the consequences of hazards in its business life cycle through a continuing process of hazard identification and risk management that decreases the likelihood of incident, accident, injury, or illness. The company’s SMS has four subparts: Safety Policy, Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance and Safety Promotion.
Spaceport America
The company’s astronauts’ flight preparation and experience will take place at The Gateway To Space at Spaceport America, the first purpose-built commercial spaceport in the world. Spaceport America is located in New Mexico on more than 25 square miles of desert landscape and includes a space terminal, hangar facilities and a 12,000 foot runway. The facility has access to 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace running from the ground to space. The restricted airspace will facilitate frequent and consistent flight scheduling, and the desert climate and its relatively predictable weather provide favorable launch conditions year-round. The development costs of Spaceport America were largely funded by the state of New Mexico. The company’s license from the FAA includes Spaceport America as a location from which it can launch and land its spaceflight system.
The terminal hangar building, officially designated the Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space, was designed to be functional and beautiful, matching the company’s astronauts’ high expectations of a Virgin-branded facility and delivering an aesthetic consistent with the Virgin Galactic experience. The form of the building in the landscape and its interior spaces capture the drama and mystery of spaceflight, reflecting the thrill of space travel for its astronauts. The LEED-Gold certified building has ample capacity to accommodate the company’s staff and its fleet of vehicles.
Sales and Marketing
In August 2021, following Sir Richard Branson's successful test flight, the company reopened ticket sales to a select group and increased the pricing of its consumer offerings to a base price of $450,000 per seat. In 2023, the company increased the pricing of its consumer offerings to a base price of $600,000. As of December 31, 2024, the company had reservations from approximately 700 future astronauts.
Given that sales of spaceflights are consultative and generally require a one-on-one sales approach, the company focuses on developing different sales journeys to engage and educate interested individuals and to drive sales conversion in a scalable way. In addition, the company intends to utilize third-party partnerships to reach and cultivate its target audiences. This includes, for example, luxury travel agencies.
Research and Development
The company’s research and development expenses were $152.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2024.
Intellectual Property
Virgin Trademark License Agreement
The company possesses certain exclusive and non-exclusive rights to use the name and brand ‘Virgin Galactic’ and the Virgin signature logo pursuant to an amended and restated trademark license agreement (the Amended TMLA). Its rights under the Amended TMLA are subject to certain reserved rights and pre-existing licenses granted by Virgin Enterprises Limited (VEL) to third parties. In addition, for the term of the Amended TMLA, to the extent Virgin Investments Limited (VIL) does not otherwise have a right to place a director on the company's board of directors, it agreed to provide VEL with the right to appoint one director to its board of directors, provided the designee is qualified to serve on the board under all applicable corporate governance policies and applicable regulatory and listing requirements.
Unless terminated earlier, the Amended TMLA will have an initial term of 25 years expiring October 2044, subject to up to two additional 10-year renewals by mutual agreement of the parties
Spacecraft Technology License Agreement
The company is a party to a Spacecraft Technology License Agreement, as amended, with Mojave Aerospace Ventures, LLC (MAV) pursuant to which it possesses a non-exclusive, worldwide license under certain patents and patent applications, including improvements that have been reduced to practice within a specified period. Under the STLA, the Royalty Period expired on July 26, 2024.
Competition
The company’s primary competitor in establishing a commercial suborbital human spaceflight offering is Blue Origin.
Regulation
Regulations, policies, and guidance issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) apply to the use and operation of the company’s spaceflight system. When the company operates its spaceflight system as ‘launch vehicles,’ meaning a vehicle built to operate in, or place a payload or human beings in, outer space, the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation requirements apply.
The company’s operations are covered under the pre-existing regulatory framework until 2026, and the company is in the process of transitioning to the FAA’s revised regulations under 14 CFR part 450 for the launch of the company’s Delta Class vehicles. In 2025, the company plans to file an application with the FAA to obtain a vehicle operator license under 14 CFR part 450, which will include, among other things, how the company meets FAA safety requirements.
When not operating as launch vehicles, the company’s spaceflight system vehicles are regulated as experimental aircraft by the FAA. The company works with the FAA to report any matters that arise during flight.
The company has a current FAA Reusable Launch Vehicle Operator License that allows test and payload revenue flights from both Mojave, California and Spaceport America, New Mexico.
The company’s commercial human spaceflight operations and any third-party claims that arise from its operation of spaceflights are subject to federal and state laws governing informed consents and waivers of claims, including under the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA), the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 (CSLAA) and the New Mexico Space Flight Informed Consent Act (SFICA).
The company’s spaceflight business is subject to, and it must comply with, stringent U.S. import and export control laws, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR).
The Analyst Price Target shows the analysts’ low, high, and average target at a glance.
