If all goes well, the two tests will be the last before Virgin’s space tourism starts in earnest. It hopes to fly company founder Sir Richard Branson into space sometime in the first quarter of 2021, effectively kicking off the company’s tourist business. Not that you’ll want to rush to the front of the line. With tickets costing $250,000 each (and possibly more), Virgin Galactic’s initial service will cater solely to wealthy people eager to say they’ve been to space.

This will be the first spaceflight from Spaceport America, and will be the first since a February 2019 test. A lot is riding on these last tests besides Virgin’s pride. The company is still bleeding money, with a net loss of $63 million in the second quarter of 2020. It can’t really recoup its losses until it’s serving paying customers, and that means finishing its pre-service tests in a timely fashion.

“The design philosophy of the aircraft is geared around making high speed travel practical, sustainable, safe, and reliable, while making customer experience a top priority,” Virgin Galactic wrote in a press release. 

Virgin Galactic

Next, the company will define specific system architectures and will determine which materials to use in the design and manufacturing of the aircraft. Virgin Galactic also signed a non-binding memo with Rolls-Royce to collaborate on designing and developing engine propulsion technology for high-speed commercial aircraft. 

While there’s still plenty of work to be done, this initial design gives us a glimpse into the future of high-speed air travel. We’ve already seen what Virgin Galactic’s space tourism will look like — from what passengers will wear to how the spacecraft cabin will be configured. 

“It’s a big moment because although the event may be virtual its significance is starting to open space to everyone is very real,” Virgin founder, Sir Richard Branson, noted during today’s reveal. “It is, which has been designed specifically to allow thousands of people to achieve their dreams of spaceflight safely.”

“Somebody once said to me the Virgin Galactic spaceship was the first one to be built from the inside out,” he continued. “There is a degree of poetic license in that statement but it contains a fundamental truth. We started with what we believed would be an optimal customer experience. And then we built the spaceship around it.”

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic teamed up with UK design firm, Seymourpowell to develop the vehicle’s interior to develop “an elegant but progressive, experience-focused concept,” according to a Tuesday press release. The individual, reclining seats will be crafted from aluminum and carbon fiber to stand up the the sub-3 G’s generated by the vehicle’s engines. Screens mounted in the seatbacks won’t show the latest Vin Diesel bomb but instead will display live flight data as well as from 16 HD cameras mounted on the vehicle’s exterior. Those videos and stills will also be made available to those aboard after the flight for sharing on social media. Astronauts who want to see the planet for themselves will be able to gaze out from any of 12 cabin windows. Since the entire point of these trips is to let people experience weightlessness, the cabin is covered in soft surfaces and handholds, such as the “halo” rim around each window. And, like Virgin Atlantic flights, Unity will be equipped with mood lighting that transitions between each phase of the trip.

Virgin Galactic has come a long way since a deadly crash during flight tests forced the company to temporarily suspend the project (and ticket sales rides aboard the spacecraft) back in 2014. After rebuilding the vehicle, Virgin Galactic successfully made its way into space in 2018. Ticket sales resumed in February of this year when the company launched its One Small Step program, wherein wealthy would-be space tourists can put down a $1,000 deposit to jump to the front of the reservation queue. Tickets were originally expected to cost around $250,000, though then-CEO George Whitesides has cautioned that the price could rise sharply as development of the flight system progresses.

In June of this year, SpaceShipTwo successfully completed its second glide test, reaching Mach .85 and clearing the way for powered flight tests in the near future. Last week, Virgin Galactic announced that it had hired former Disney executive Michael Colglazier as its new CEO, replacing Whitesides who now works as the company’s Chief Space Officer.

“…we are delighted to welcome Michael as the new Chief Executive to lead Galactic into commercial operations. I believe Michael’s long and distinguished career at one of the world’s leading customer experience brands provides a natural fit with Virgin’s culture as well as Galactic’s requirements as it prepares for commercial service.”

Colglazier is replacing George Whitesides, who’s taking on a new role as Chief Space Officer. Whitesides is also stepping down from the company’s Board of Directors, but he will remain in charge of developing Virgin’s future business opportunities, including point-to-point hypersonic and orbital space travel.

The aerospace company started selling tickets for suborbital flights in 2013, but ticket sales went on hold after the SpaceShipTwo crash in 2014 that killed one of the pilots and forced the company to build a replacement vehicle. Virgin Galactic has reopened ticket sales since then but closed it yet again after the new SpaceShipTwo reached space during a test flight in 2018.

Earlier this year, the company began preparing to reopen ticket sales by launching the One Small Step program. It allows those interested to register online for a ticket slot with a $1,000 refundable deposit. If they pass the “qualification process” — we’re guessing they have to be very, very rich to qualify — then they get bumped to the front of line for firm seat reservations once they become available.

“Ultimately, the interior of the spaceship was designed with one primary goal in mind, and that is to get the perfect view of Earth from space,” the company said in a video announcing the reveal.

During the livestream event, Virgin Galactic will also discuss a new digital platform that will bring “immersive versions” of its spaceflight and cabin interior to aspiring astronauts around the world.

“We now look forward to revealing our spaceship cabin design, which is progressive, beautiful and functional,” said Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides. “We are particularly delighted that, under current restrictions, we have been able to create an experience that we will be able to share with the millions of people around the world who dream of travelling to space.”

You can watch the livestream here:

Virgin Galactic’s repeatedly-delayed plans for commercial spaceflight are drawing closer, after the company completed another glide test at its Spaceport America HQ in New Mexico. The VSS Unity once again released from its mothership at about 50,000 feet, but went a bit faster this time and reached speeds of Mach 0.85.

CEO George Whitesides said in a statement that “It was an important test that, pending data review, means we can now start preparing the vehicles for powered flight. Our focus for this year remains unchanged on ensuring the vehicles and our operations are prepared for long-term, regular commercial spaceflight service.”

The pieces are finally starting to come together for Virgin Galactic’s space tourism — the company has flown SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America for the first time. It was just a glide test from 50,000 feet up, but the flight let the spaceport fulfill its intended purpose and gave pilots familiarity with the New Mexico airspace. This will also help Virgin compare performance against similar maneuvers from earlier tests.

And before you ask: yes, Virgin took steps to keep crews safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reworked operational elements to keep people apart, and required “universal” mask usage.

The company didn’t say exactly when those next tickets would be available or how much they would cost, although CEO Gorge Whitesides had warned that prices might climb substantially from the $250,000 for early customers. Virgin is still a long way from courting everyday people, then. The new batch of tickets is believe to be ready sometime later in 2020.

Ticket sales have been on hold since 2014, when the fatal SpaceShipTwo crash led Virgin to pause operations and reassess its progress toward passenger flights.

Richard Branson’s outfit didn’t explain why it was offering One Small Step. However, the clues may be written all over Virgin Galactic’s financials. The company posted its first public earnings at the same time as it announced the front-of-line program, revealing a net loss of $72.8 million in the last quarter of 2019 — considerably higher than the $45.7 million from the same period in 2018. Combine that with allusions to possible commercial flight delays and Virgin could bleed money for a while. The deposits are unlikely to come anywhere close to making up this shortfall, but they do increase the odds that those on the waiting list will follow through and pay for their tickets in full.

The unique feature of the Virgin Orbit program is how quickly a launch can be arranged. Typically, a launch takes years of planning and can only take place from certain sites which access particular orbits. This means that access to a given orbit can never be guaranteed on short notice. However, Virgin believes it can offer launches with as little as a week’s notice by making use of its customized 747-400 aircraft which acts as a “flying launch pad.”

This speed of deployment is a particular selling point for the military. “We’ve built a launch system to address commercial needs, but we’ve found it has enormous advantages for government customers,” said Dan Hart, President and CEO of Virgin Orbit.

The RAF’s Artemis project is not to be confused with NASA’s Artemis project. NASA’s Artemis is a commercial partnership for moon landings, and the RAF’s Artemis is a commercial partnership for launching satellites. Despite the similar names and fields, they are totally different projects.

Hart also expressed optimism that the project could support peaceful international relations in space: “Ultimately, we are hopeful that by demonstrating the capability to quickly and easily deploy and replace satellites in Low Earth Orbit we will be helping to remove the incentive for any nation to invest the money in harming another nation’s satellite.”

Virgin Orbit performed a successful drop test of its LauncherOne vehicle a few weeks ago. Now it will finalize assembly and testing of its orbital rocket before the first launch into space, scheduled for later this year.

The corporation conducted VSS Unity’s first test flight with a passenger onboard back in February, two months after its first ever flight to space. It will now complete the vehicle’s final tests from New Mexico after the company relocates it and its carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, over the summer. One of the flights could have Branson himself as a passenger, seeing as he intends to fly to the edge of space on July 16th, 2019 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Virgin Galactic is also moving 100 staff members to its new HQ, since that’s where it’ll run things from now on. As the company said, the move “signals the final countdown” to the beginning of its commercial spaceflight service.

Sir Richard Branson said in a statement:

“Our Virgin Galactic adventure has been intertwined with New Mexico and Spaceport America right from the start and our stories have unfolded together. New Mexico delivered on its promise to build a world-first and world-class spaceport. Today, I could not be more excited to announce, that in return, we are now ready to bring New Mexico a world-first, world-class spaceline. Virgin Galactic is coming home to New Mexico where together we will open space to change the world for good.”

It’s going to be special to see the world’s most beautiful spaceship fly from one of the world’s most wonderfully designed buildings, Spaceport America https://t.co/kSsQC1PQJw @virgingalactic pic.twitter.com/owrz1dOBOy

— Richard Branson (@richardbranson) May 10, 2019

New Mexico will be one of the very few places on the planet which will be hosting human spaceflight launches. We are initiating the move of our spaceship and operations team to New Mexico’s @Spaceport_NM. https://t.co/n35fpAsv2W pic.twitter.com/gDdjuk8UGl

— Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) May 10, 2019