Key Sentence:
- Virgin Galactic shares fell 20% on Friday after the space tourism company announced it would suspend its first commercial flight.
The trip was scheduled for the third quarter of 2022 but will be postponed until the fourth quarter as the company makes repairs and upgrades. He also said he would not conduct a second scheduled test flight this year. Virgin is competing with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s Space X to fly tourists into space.
A company statement said the planned upgrade program to increase the ship’s resilience would start a month later than planned. After routine tests showed the “possibility of reducing the strength limit of certain materials” used on the VMS Eve and VSS Unity ships.
Virgin said this needed further review but downplayed security concerns.
“While this new laboratory test data does not affect the vehicle, our test flight protocol has clearly defined strength limits. And further analysis will assess. Whether additional work is required to maintain it at or above the specified level,” said company director Michael Colglazier.
The company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson says its next test flight Unity 23 will now take place next summer. Then commercial flights began. Last month, the US Federal Aviation Administration canceled flight orders for Virgin Galactic. After flights dropped out of designated airspace in July.
Regulators accused the company from failing to provide necessary information for flights involving Branson.
On Wednesday, Hollywood actor William Shatner became the oldest human to fly into space. After exploding aboard a Blue Origin capsule developed by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Meanwhile, four amateur astronauts set off from Florida on their secret mission aboard one of Space X’s Dragon spacecraft in September.