Following the successful crewed flight into suborbital space, Virgin Galactic announces its new prices to customers able to pay nearly half a million dollars.
The Virgin Galactic commercial space line announced that tickets to board the spacecraft will now be priced at US $ 450,000 per seat, more than double the initial cost of US $ 200,000 established several years ago.
This announcement came as part of Virgin Galactic’s second quarterly earnings report. The Richard Branson-owned company also announced that it is targeting another fully-crewed test flight of the VSS Unity the following month.
The next VSS Unity flight will take place in late September from Spaceport America in New Mexico, the trip will be “a revenue-generating flight with the Italian Air Force,” according to the company.
Space tourists
The reopening of ticket sales comes on the heels of Branson’s successful flight to the edge of space on the SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic’s flagship space tourism vehicle.
The mission, called Unity 22, was able to carry four passengers about 85 kilometers above sea level with a few minutes of weightlessness.
The next mission, Unity 23, will carry research payloads and three members of the Italian Air Force.
