The Spaceship Company

Seats aboard Richard Branson’s spaceship have reopened for sale in the past week, skyrocketing in price.

Wannabe space tourists who missed the first opportunity to secure one of the first 600-odd seats on Sir Richard Branson’s commercial space program can now lay down a deposit to nab a seat.

Virgin Galactic has completed another vital step on its path to commercial service, relocating SpaceShipTwo, VSS Unity, to its commercial headquarters at Spaceport America’s Gateway to Space building. VSS Unity, attached to the carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, made the journey from Mojave, California, where the company’s manufacturing facilities are based, where it was greeted by an enthusiastic group of teammates who will operate the spaceship in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic has named Enrico Palermo as the aerospace company’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), effective immediately. In this newly created role, Palermo will be responsible for helping maintain efficiency and peak performance across the enterprise as it develops as a public company, and will lead the execution of specific company strategies and initiatives.

The Spaceship Company has taken a key step on the path to completing the next spaceship in Virgin Galactic’s fleet. The team has attached the structure of SpaceShipTwo’s unique ‘feather system’ to the wing of the new vehicle, in what is the union of two major components of the airframe. This latest milestone is the final step prior to resting the vehicle’s weight on its wheels.

A few milestones were achieved this week at Virgin Galactic, which has bonded the fuselage and cabin of its next spaceship to the completed wing assembly.

The UAE Space Agency has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company that outlines cooperation across different areas including plans to bring Virgin Galactic spaceflights to the UAE for education, science, technology research as well as potential space tourism flights in the future.