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Summary
- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) upgraded Virgin Galactic's license and it now covers customer flights.
- The approval means that the budding industry of space tourism, a major dream of several billionaires, is one step closer to reality.
- Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft is known as Unity, and it can carry up to six passengers and two pilots.
- Find out more about Virgin Galactic (SPCE) stock in this article.
Stocks of Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPCE, SPCE:US) soared 17 per cent at market open on Friday, June 25, after the company got the license to fly customers into space. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) upgraded Virgin Galactic's license and it now covers customer flights.
The company said that is the first time the FAA has approved “a spaceline to fly.” Virgin Galactic also confirmed that May 22 test flight had met its objectives and will continue preparing for the three remaining test flights.
In the next test flight, Virgin Galactic will reportedly carry four passengers to test the spacecraft's cabin. This will be followed by a second flight which will carry Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson and the third and last test flight will comprise Italian Air Force officials for professional astronaut training.
Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft is known as Unity, and it can carry up to six passengers and two pilots. At least 600 bookings have been made for the company's future flights and the tickets were sold between US$ 200,000 to US$ 250,000 per person.
The approval means that the budding industry of space tourism, a major dream of several billionaires, is one step closer to reality. Not long ago, space travel and tourism was dubbed as science fiction, however, this might soon become popular.
In July this year, fellow billionaire and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) boss Jeff Bezos plans to take his first trip to the space. Mr Bezos will be accompanied by his younger brother, Mark Bezos, and four other passengers. The duo will travel on the first crewed flight of the billionaire’s aerospace company, Blue Origin. Earlier this month, a passenger seat was auctioned for US$28 million for this flight.
Virgin Galactic’s (NYSE:SPCE) stock and financial performance
SPCE stock was trading at US$ 47.1 apiece at 10 AM EDT and its previous close was US$ 40.26 on Thursday, June 24. Virgin Galactic share prices returned about 160 per cent to the stockholders in the last one year and catapulted by 70 per cent year-to-date (YTD).
The company holds a market cap of C$ 11.3 billion and its debt-to-equity ratio sits at 0.04, according to the data from TMX.
One-year chart of stock performance, volume and moving average multiple of Virgin Galactic (Source: EODHD/Others)
In the first quarter of fiscal 2021, Virgin Galactic’s cash position remained strong as it had cash and cash equivalents of US$ 617 million and it also reduced net loss to US$ 130 million compared to a net loss of US$ 377 million in Q1 2020.
The above constitutes a preliminary view and any interest in stocks should be evaluated further from an investment point of view. The reference data in this article has been partly sourced from EODHD/Others.
