Boeing Will Build Virgin Galactic’s Commercial Spacecraft As Tourism Looks Up

In time, the well-traveled might venture out of the stratosphere. Virgin Galactic and Boeing’s subsidiary, Aurora Flight Sciences, are working together to produce two new “motherships” for space travel.

According to a press release, the new spaceships are said to be able to fly up to 200 times a year. Virgin Galactic’s CEO Michael Colglazier notes that this fleet will be easier to maintain, faster to produce, and will exponentially increase the number of flights the company is intending to make into space.   

The “mothership” will be the air-launch carrier that will rocket Virgin Galactic’s spaceship to an altitude of 50,000 feet before releasing it.

Enlisting the help of a third party for production leaves core Virgin Galactic employees with more time to focus on the design and engineering of its spaceships. 

Aurora has said that the carriers will be ready by 2025, and that flights into space are expected to reach once a week. Virgin Galactic has stated that these new Delta-class planes will be fully ready to take on paying passengers by 2026.  

Virgin Galactic’s first and only flight into space aboard its VSS Unity space plane, which owner and founder Richard Branson was a passenger of as well, took off and landed almost a year ago and has not been back to space since. Now, the company is looking to enhance the technology of its fleet before bringing space vacations to the market.   

As of November 2021, tickets have been released to the general public, and space enthusiasts have been quick to hop on board.

[via Space.com and Virgin Galactic, cover image via Virgin Galactic]