Virgin Galactic on track to start launching customers again in 2026, but seat prices will rise

Virgin Galactic's spaceflight drought will last just about two years, if all goes according to plan.

The suborbital space tourism company last went to the final frontier in June 2024, on the final flight of its VSS Unity space plane. Virgin retired Unity to focus on developing its new, more efficient "Delta class" vehicles — and the first of those advanced, six-passenger ships remains on track to debut next year, according to the company.

"An enormous amount of work is taking place across our company, as well as at our key suppliers," Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said during an earnings call with investors on May 15. "We continue to expect our first [Delta] research spaceflight will take place in summer of 2026, with private astronaut flights following in fall of 2026."

That call, which reported Virgin Galactic's financial results for the first quarter of 2025, provided a number of other updates as well.

For example, Colglazier said the company — which currently has about 675 customers on its manifest — plans to start accepting flight reservations again in the first quarter of 2026. New customers will be brought onboard via a new "highly bespoke education sales process" that will feature distinct "waves."

"This approach has several intended benefits for customers," Colglazier said. "Tailoring the number of new arrivals into our future astronaut community during each wave allows us to provide a white-glove onboarding experience that will form the foundation of each customer's journey to space. From a yield-management perspective, this allows us to adjust our pricing wave by wave."

Ticket prices have not yet been set, though it's expected to be higher than the $600,000 that the most recent customers paid, he added.