Virgin Galactic plans to spend $30M on new hangar at Spaceport America

Virgin Galactic officials doubled down on their commitment to Spaceport America, telling a legislative committee on Friday that it plans to build a new $30 million hangar that would house a mothership and the space company’s fueling facilities.

The presentation from Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic’s president of spaceline operations, to the Economic and Rural Development and Policy Committee in Las Cruces comes as the company has been working toward building up its next generation of Delta ships, which are expected to take more frequent trips to suborbit.

Moses told legislators the hangar would cost about $30 million. The company is hoping to get it operational by 2026 when Virgin Galactic plans to begin flying its Delta ships — which early on, he said, could fly every three days out of the Spaceport.

“Virgin Galactic will be funding the construction and building of that, leasing it from (the New Mexico Spaceport Authority),” Moses said. “They’re doing a great partnership, laying in the utilities and the roads we need and the services that we’ll operate from. But this will be an investment Virgin Galactic is making directly into Spaceport America.”

Moses noted that Virgin Galactic signed a letter of intent for a new hangar with the Spaceport Authority — which manages the roughly 18,000-acre property in southern New Mexico — and that the company is working on lease negotiations for the new addition.

He said if all goes according to plan, Virgin Galactic will break ground on the 30,000-square-foot hangar sometime early next year, “hopefully January or February.”

The letter of intent, signed in June, would also allow Virgin Galactic to build additional hangars at the Spaceport.

That would be ideal for Virgin Galactic, which since 2023 has made seven successful commercial flights to space. The company recently paused those flights as it builds its Delta ships.

Moses told legislators Friday the company plans to begin testing two Delta ships in 2025 out of the Spaceport, with commercial flights ramping up the following year more frequently to an estimated 125 trips and 750 passengers.

That can work out to lots of revenue for the company, Moses said.

“If you do the math, that’s a $450 million annual revenue,” he said. “So just two spaceships by itself is a pretty good business and a nice, healthy line item that we can invest in the future for more ships for Virgin Galactic.”

Moses also spoke to the company’s economic impact, saying Virgin Galactic over the past decade has spent more than $100 million in payroll and wages, $55 million with local suppliers and $35 million in lease payments to the state.

“So a huge economic impact directly into the state and the state’s economy, both in Sierra County and Doña Ana,” he said.