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Summary
- The space tourism company to conduct a spaceflight test this Saturday.
- Virgin Galactic first attempted the spaceflight test in December 2020.
- The company’s stock is down 18.7 percent year to date.
Virgin Galactic Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPCE) stock jumped as much as 25 percent in the pre-market trading on Thursday, May 20, after the company confirmed it would conduct the next test flight of its spacecraft SpaceShipTwo Unity this Saturday.
The California-based aerospace and space tourism company is working on a project to take private individuals and researchers to space. It also makes modern spaceships. Its SpaceShipTwo is designed to carry six people into space.
It announced the test run after an evaluation of its VMS Eve aircraft that will carry the SpaceShipTwo into space with NASA’s research payloads. The company noted weather and technical checks are pending. It will be manned by two pilots.
As of 9:58 AM ET, the stock was trading at US$19.57, up 13.3 percent.
Source: Pixabay
Stock down over 18% YTD
Virgin Galactic’s stock, which had rallied to US$62.80 in February, is down 18.7 percent year to date. The share price had been declining in the last two months amid uncertainties over the spaceflight test’s timeline.
Virgin Galactic first attempted the spaceflight test in December 2020. But it had to cut short the mission because of some engine anomaly and delayed the trial run to February.
The company again postponed the test to May as the corrective work was in progress.
Read More: Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic delay trip to space
Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic Chairman Chamath Palihapitiya reportedly offloaded his shares in the company worth US$213 million in March, and founder Sir Richard Branson sold shares worth US$150 million in April this year.
Adding to the uncertainty, Virgin Atlantic said this month that the timing of the next test is being evaluated as further assessment is required due to potential wear and tear issue.
The company reported a net loss of US$130 million for the first quarter ended March 31, an improvement from the US$377 loss in the year-ago quarter.
Amazon.Com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin has also scheduled the launch of its first space tourism rocket, New Shepard, on July 20.
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