Who Owns Virgin Galactic?

Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 after SpaceShipOne's Ansari X Prize flights, licensing the Scaled Composites technology that produced the air-launched, feathered-reentry spaceplane concept. Development of SpaceShipTwo at Mojave Air and Space Port ran more than a decade and included the fatal 2014 breakup of VSS Enterprise during a test flight.

The breakthrough came in December 2018 with VSS Unity's first flight above 50 miles, the US boundary of space. Branson flew himself aboard Unity 22 in July 2021, and commercial service began in June 2023, running monthly private astronaut and research flights through mid-2024 at roughly $450,000 a seat.

Unity flew twelve spaceflights total but was expensive to turn around between missions. Management retired it in June 2024 and redirected spending to the Delta class, a redesigned six-passenger spaceplane built at the Mesa, Arizona Spaceship Factory and engineered for twice-weekly service.

On October 28, 2026, the lead Delta ship, named VSS Apeiron by public vote, was unveiled and flown to Spaceport America beneath the VMS Eve carrier aircraft to begin flight test preparations. First commercial spaceflight is targeted for early Q2 2027, with a second Delta vehicle entering service in late Q2 or early Q3 2027.