Virgin Galactic looks to raise money to help boost next-generation spaceflight fleet

Virgin Galactic on Wednesday said it has entered into a sales agreement to sell shares of its common stock to boost the development of its next-generation spaceflight fleet, which is expected to take more frequent trips to suborbit.

In announcing the news, company officials also held a third-quarter earnings call that touched on the Virgin Galactic’s progress in building out its fleet, which could include up to four ships and an additional mothership to go along with the VMS Eve.

“Taking advantage of the flight capacity provided by a third and fourth spaceship requires the addition of a second mothership. With the strong progress made on the Delta program, we now have the engineering capacity to pick up the design work on a second mothership,” said Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier. “This additional mothership and two additional spaceships are the keys to unlocking substantial economic expansion.”

The company’s revenue for the third quarter, $402,000, fell below the $2.2 million estimates of analysts — the slowest quarter this year for Virgin Galactic, which posted revenue of $4 million in the second quarter and about $2 million in the first quarter.

But company officials in announcing the “at-the-market” equity program said it could raise $300 million to fuel long-term growth. That could prove to be a big win for Virgin Galactic, which has paused commercial spaceflights from Spaceport America, where it is an anchor tenant, to begin its work on the next fleet.

The company in July finished the buildout of its manufacturing facility in Arizona.

During Wednesday’s investors call, Colglazier said part fabrication for the ships will continue ramping up in the fourth quarter of this year, with assembly of the ships expected to begin in the first quarter of next year. He said Virgin Galactic's plan to begin testing out their first assembled ship in the second half of 2025 with commercial launches still on track for 2026.

Virgin Galactic has so far flown seven times commercially out of the Spaceport and the company has said in the past that it expects to majorly boost the frequency of flights out of southern New Mexico as more ships come online.

Additionally, Colglazier said he expects ticket sales to unpause “somewhere toward the back half of 2025.”

“We have a business that we expect is quite supply constrained relative to demand, and we think it’s appropriate to have people generally with a two-year time window from the time they sign on board, building up the journey and then going ahead and letting them come to New Mexico for the week of training before flight,” he said.

Earlier this year, the company doubled down on its commitment to Spaceport America by signing a letter of intent to build a $30 million, 30,000-square-foot hangar that would house a mothership and the space company’s fueling facilities.

The letter of intent also signals additional investment by Virgin Galactic, including the potential to build additional hangars as the company ramps up more frequent flights to suborbit.

On Wednesday, Virgin Galactic stock was trading around $7 a share — down from a high of $47 a share in early January.