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The VSS Unity spacecraft took three private citizens to the edge of space on Thursday.
Courtesy Virgin Galactic
The space tourism business is finally gaining some altitude.
Space tourism pioneer
Virgin Galactic
(ticker: SPCE) flew three passengers to the edge of space Thursday, letting them experience weightlessness and take a look at the Earth from an unusual vantage point.
The flight, which took off from Virgin’s Spaceport America in New Mexico, can be watched here.
It was Flight 02 for Galactic. In late June, Flight 01 took members of the Italian Air Force and the scientific community up.
Virgin Galactic
stock is actually down about 29% since it started its space tourism service with Flight 01. Shares rallied 40% in the month leading up to the flight. Sometimes investors sell the news.
Galactic reported second-quarter results on Aug. 1st. Sales came in at about $2 million, driven by Flight 01. The company expects sales of roughly $1 million in both the third and the fourth quarters. Wall Street projects about $29 million in sales for 2024.
The business is using about $125 million in cash a quarter. Virgin Galactic is still in start-up mode. It has almost $1 billion on the books to fund its business growth.
It has taken much longer for Virgin Galactic to get off the ground than expected. When the company was raising money in 2019, it projected 2023 sales of $590 million derived from 270 flights.
But getting to space is hard and a series of technical and regulatory delays have hampered growth. Delays have weighed on shares too. The stock is still down about 95% from all-time highs reached nearly 2021.
Virgin stock was up 1.6% in midday trading after the successful flight. The
S&P 500
and
Nasdaq Composite
were up 0.5% and 0.6%, respectively.
Investors are probably waiting for a day when they don’t have to monitor each flight’s impact on the stock. That will be a sign the space tourism business is maturing.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com