Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is delaying the start of its space tourism venture until Q3/2022.

Virgin Galactic, following on from the success of its flight with Sir Richard aboard on July 11th, had originally said it would start carrying fee-paying tourists early in 2022. There is a planned test-flight in September.

However, Virgin Galactic is also hiking its price for a seat aboard a conventional sub-orbital flight to an eye-watering $450,000.  Tickets had originally been offered at $250,000 for a flight aboard SpaceShipTwo.

Virgin now says that people who had signed up for its ‘One Small Step’ offer, with deposits of $1,000, will have priority booking – although at $450,000 per seat.

Michael Colglazier, CEO at Virgin Galactic, said in an earnings call. “If someone wants to purchase a full flight, and buy out all the seats on the flight, there will be a modest premium that goes against that.”

The company reported that “reservations” of “Future Astronauts” totalled approximately 600 as at June 30th.

Virgin Galactic explained its new pricing structure: “For the private astronaut market, the Company will have three consumer offerings:

1. a single seat;
2. a multi-seat couples / friends / family package; and
3. full-flight buy out. Pricing for these offers will begin at $450,000 per seat. Sales will initially open to the Company’s significant list of early hand-raisers, prioritizing the Spacefarer Community, who, as promised, will be given first opportunity to reserve their place in space. A follow-on priority list will be opened to customers interested in reserving future spaceflights.”

The company said that maintenance and inspection of the ‘mother ship’ (Unity/Eve) and SpaceShipTwo rocket portion of the combination will take longer than originally anticipated.

Virgin Galactic report revenues of a mere $571,000 (€485,000) and a net loss of $94 million during the Q2/2021 to June 30th.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Differing opinions on Project Kuiper
2. IRIS2 contract signing at year-end
3. Icasa “over-reached” in confiscating StarSat kit
4. Starlink tests D2C in Romania, US, Japan
5. European telcos unite against Starlink D2C
6. Rivada insists “deadlines will be met”
7. Ergen will gain “greatest opportunity” by losing DISH
8. Rivada’s latest problems could be fatal
9. SES confirms 25c dividend

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