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Virgin Galactic
Space tourism company / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. is a British-American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and the Virgin Group conglomerate which retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited.[2] It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company develops commercial spacecraft and provides suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic's maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS Unity spaceship.[3] Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010,[4] but the date was delayed, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS Enterprise.
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Founded | 2004; 20 years ago (2004) | ||||||
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Destinations | 1 (Space) | ||||||
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Headquarters | Tustin, California, U.S | ||||||
Key people | Michael Colglazier (CEO) Doug Ahrens (CFO) Mike Moses (President – Safety) | ||||||
Founder | Richard Branson | ||||||
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Employees | 1,166 (2022) | ||||||
Website | virgingalactic.com | ||||||
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The company did the early work on the satellite launch development of LauncherOne before this was hived off to a separate company, Virgin Orbit, in 2017. The company also has aspirations for suborbital transport, to provide rocket-powered, point-to-point 3,000 mph (4,800 km/h) air travel.[5][6][7][8][9] The spin-off company, Virgin Orbit was shut down in May 2023.
On 13 December 2018, VSS Unity achieved the project's first suborbital space flight, VSS Unity VP-03, with two pilots, reaching an altitude of 82.7 kilometres (51.4 mi), and officially entering outer space by U.S. standards.[10][11] In February 2019, the project carried three people, including a passenger, on VSS Unity VF-01, with a member of the team floating within the cabin during a spaceflight that reached 89.9 kilometres (55.9 mi). On 11 July 2021, founder Richard Branson and three other employees rode on a flight as passengers, marking the first time a spaceflight company founder has travelled on his own ship into outer space.[12] In February 2022, Virgin Galactic announced that it was opening ticket sales to the public.[13] The price of a reservation was $450,000.[14] In June 2023, Virgin Galactic launched its first commercial space tourism flight called Galactic 01.[15][16] Galactic 07 in June 2024 was the final flight of Unity as the company shifted focus to its Delta class vehicles and a higher launch cadence.[17]