After nearly two years, Virgin Galactic's space plane returns to the sky

The VSS Unity spacecraft did not make a powered flight with its rocket engine on Wednesday, but it cleared the final hurdle before doing so by performing a glide test in New Mexico.

On Wednesday morning, the VMS Eve aircraft took off from Spaceport America and subsequently released the spacecraft at an altitude of about 14 kilometers. After this, VSS Unity glided back to the runway in New Mexico, testing modifications to the spacecraft's flight controls and handling.

After the test, Virgin Galactic said the glide flight closes its "final validation test points" of a campaign to ensure the aircraft and space plane are ready to resume powered flights. To that end, the company said data collected during the flight will be analyzed in the coming weeks, and assuming the review goes well, the next mission will be a powered spaceflight.

That flight will carry two pilots and four company employees, who will serve as "mission specialists," to evaluate the customer experience during the mission. And if that flight goes well, Virgin Galactic said it is prepared to commence commercial service during the second quarter of 2023. The first commercial flight will carry officials with the Italian Air Force.

Wednesday's flight marked the first time that VSS Unity has made a flight independent of its carrier aircraft since July 2021, when it rocketed Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and employees Beth Moses, Sirisha Bandla, and Colin Bennett to an altitude of about 85 km.

Since then, the company has grounded both the aircraft and the spacecraft for modifications intended to increase the flight rate and reliability of the vehicles. However, such a prolonged downtime has raised questions about the financial viability of Virgin Galactic's space tourism ambitions.

For example, in 2022, the company reported a net loss of $500 million after flying no customers to space. At the end of the year, however, Virgin Galactic said its cash position remained strong, with "cash and cash equivalents and marketable securities" of $980 million on hand.

Investors have nonetheless appeared to grow somewhat skeptical of the company. After Branson's flight, the publicly traded company's stock price vaulted to $55.91 a share. However, in recent days, it has been trading at just above $3 a share.

With the recently completed modifications, Virgin Galactic will aim to fly VSS Unity once a month. That is far below the cadence of flights needed to approach profitability. The company's ultimate goal is the development of a line of "Delta" class of spaceships, with a turnaround time of one week. With a fleet of Delta ships, the company believes it can meet a profitable flight rate of 400 missions a year. But the Delta ships are unlikely to be ready for test flights before at least 2025, and commercial service would not begin until a year after that.