WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic will reduce the frequency of flights of its current suborbital vehicle and stop them entirely by mid-2024 as it concentrates resources on the next generation of vehicles.
In a Nov. 8 earnings call, company executives said flights of VSS Unity, which completed its fifth commercial suborbital mission Nov. 2, would move to a quarterly frequency starting with its next mission, Galactic 06 in January. That would be followed by Galactic 07 early in the second quarter.
There could be a third mission, Galactic 08, around the middle of the year, but Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic’s chief executive, said the company had not decided yet whether to fly that mission before moving personnel and other resources to work on its Delta-class of vehicles.
Virgin Galactic announced Nov. 7 it would be laying off staff and reducing other expenses to concentrate resources on the Delta class, which Colglazier said was key to the company’s future. The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it would be cutting 185 jobs, or about 18% of its current workforce.
That announcement did not provide any indications about the future of Unity, but Colglazier suggested in the earnings call that the company had learned what it needed about spaceflight operations and the experience of its customers over the five commercial flights it carried out between June and November.
“Unity’s flight objectives are to demonstrate our system, showcase our astronaut experience and provide learnings for our Delta program,” he said. “The total costs to support Unity’s flights surpass the relatively modest monthly revenues.”
“The big move we’re making here is pivoting the resources that have been put into the Unity flights and redirecting them over to get the Delta ships done with the cash we have on hand,” he said later in the call.
Colglazier said that for the remaining flights, Virgin Galactic will…
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