Virgin Galactic has made steady progress in launching regular commercial space flights after a devastating setback in 2014 when a test pilot died in a crash. For many months, it seemed that 2020 would finally be the year in which founder Richard Branson and his first paying customers would take a pleasure trip into space. Now Virgin says it has to wait a little longer.
The company has been successful sent his chief astronaut teacher Beth Moses as a passenger on a suborbital flight, completed his Astronaut lounge at its launch center in New Mexico and just last week revealed the inside of his passenger cabin.
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But on Monday's call for profits, chief space officer and former CEO George Whitesides said that Coronavirus pandemic has caused setbacks that will prevent the company from starting Branson in the first quarter of 2021 at the earliest.
The hidden features of Virgin Galactic's spacesuit
"Sir Richard is uniquely positioned to deliver the ultimate cabin and space experience as a visionary of the Virgin customer experience," said Whitesides.
Before this can happen, Virgin Galactic will conduct two more test flights in 2020, including one with experimental payloads for NASA.
The company, which went public in October, also said it would sell more shares to raise additional funds.
Virgin Galactic has approximately 600 future astronauts in line to visit space. Together, they gave the company approximately $ 80 million in deposits. Depending on when the reservations were made, the cost of the trip starts at $ 200,000 per seat.
Virgin Galactic unveils its spacecraft cabin where tourists ...
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