Virgin Galactic says commercial flights are on track to resume in fourth quarter of 2026

Spaceport America’s largest tenant, Virgin Galactic, will resume commercial flights out of the launch facility in the fourth quarter of 2026, after what will have been a hiatus of more than two years.

During an earnings call this week, Virgin Galactic officials said Spaceport flights could begin again as early as October of next year. The company paused its monthly trips to space out of Las Cruces in June of last year while it builds its new Delta-class rocket ships, which will be able to fly twice a week instead of the usual once-a-month launches that happened in 2023 and 2024, officials have said.

When announcing the pause, representatives from Virgin Galactic predicted the Delta ships would be operational for commercial flights sometime in 2026. It gave more clarity in August, when the company said the launch of commercial flights would come in the fall of 2026.

On Thursday, however, the company said test flights of its new ships would resume in Q3 2026 and commercial flights in the following quarter.

Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said Thursday he was “pleased to share” that expected dates for test flights and for operational flights remained “essentially unchanged” from the company’s prior forecast this year.

The company plans to hire additional staff to support the launch of the Delta ships, Colglazier said. In November 2023, Virgin cut 73 of its New Mexico employees after reporting a net loss of $105 million for the third quarter of that year.

“We’re interviewing the best of the best of the world’s pilots to join our pilot corps, and we’re planning for the growth of our customer operations teams to take care of both our astronauts and their guests when they’re on site at Spaceport America,” Colglazier said.

Virgin Galactic will start with one flight a week and gradually work up to its goal of 12 flights per month, or 125 flights per year, out of the Spaceport, he said. Colglazier added that it has also made upgrades to its mothership, VMS Eve, which will fly its Delta-class vehicles and previously carried VSS Unity into the skies for commercial flights.

“Spaceport America is enthusiastic to watch Virgin Galactic continue construction of their Delta class spacecraft, and we look forward to Q4 2026 when they’ll re-engage in commercial space flight,” Spaceport spokesperson Charlie Hurley said.

The Spaceport added nearly $240 million to New Mexico’s economy last year, a decrease from $266 million in 2023, according to the facility’s most recent economic impact report compiled by the Arrowhead Center at New Mexico State University and released in August. Virgin Galactic’s final space tourism mission flew out of the Spaceport on June 8, 2024.

Though Virgin Galactic is the launch facility’s biggest customer, Spaceport America has seven other tenants, including Colorado-based space startup Sirius Technologies, which signed a two-year lease in May. Sirius is a subsidiary of a Japanese startup that will use the Spaceport to develop and test its launch vehicles and rocket motor operations, aiming to achieve orbital flight.

The company reported a quarterly loss of $1.09 per share on Thursday. Officials said Virgin Galactic’s revenue was $400,000 for each of the third quarters of 2025 and 2024, money that came from access fees for future astronauts. On Friday, its stock was trading at $3.67 — down nearly 40% since January.