Virgin Galactic unveils Apeiron spaceship, pushes debut to Q2 2027
The company named its new Delta-class spacecraft by public vote and moved it to Spaceport America as its commercial relaunch slips again.
What to know
- Virgin Galactic's new Delta-class spaceship was named Apeiron through a public vote drawing entries from 83 countries.
- The company's next commercial spaceflight has slipped again, now targeted for early Q2 2027, versus a prior target of February 2027.
- It has been over two years since Virgin Galactic's last commercial spaceflight in June 2024, when it retired VSS Unity.
- Apeiron has moved from the Mesa, Arizona factory to Spaceport America, New Mexico, for avionics software validation ahead of flight tests.
“The lead Spaceship’s first commercial spaceflight is now expected in early Q2 2027, and the second Spaceship is expected to begin commercial spaceflight operations in late Q2/early Q3 2027.”
Virgin Galactic, Company statement · The Verge ↗ · Oct 27
Michael Colglazier Chief Executive Officer of Virgin GalacticVirgin Galactic Commercial spaceflight company
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts
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Apeiron departs Arizona factory for Spaceport America
Apeiron left Virgin Galactic's Mesa, Arizona Spaceship Factory on a captive-carry flight attached to launch vehicle Eve, heading to Spaceport America in New Mexico, where engineers plan to complete avionics software validation before flight tests begin.
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first by Albuquerque Journal, 10d ago · also Yahoo, Virgin Galactic, Simply Wall St, The Verge, Space, KOB 4 +2
8 more headlines
- Virgin Galactic Unveils Spaceship Apeiron Yahoo · 10d ago
- Virgin Galactic (SPCE) Brings Apeiron To Spaceport America For Flight Test Preparations Simply Wall St · 10d ago
- Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship Apeiron Arrives Home to Spaceport America Virgin Galactic · 10d ago
- Here’s Virgin Galactic’s new Apeiron spaceship The Verge · 10d ago
- Virgin Galactic is finally revealing its new Delta-class spaceship this week Space · 10d ago
- New Virgin Galactic spaceship arrives at Spaceport America KOB 4 · 10d ago
- Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship “Apeiron” heads to Spaceport America Aviation Photography Digest · 9d ago
- Virgin Galactic unveils new spaceship Apeiron, targets commercial spaceflight return in 2027 Fox Business · 6d ago
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So, the underlying story is that Virgin Galactic is a publicly traded company. There's really no way the company could possibly be financially successful but they continue to survive in this "Wile E. Coyote waiting for gravity to kick in" space as long as they can keep the hype train running. They've been around over 20 years, they had roughly one…
2 more of the top 3 · 8 posts in this stretch
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https://www. europesays.com/us/1153856/ Watch Virgin Galactic’s new ‘Delta-class’ space plane take to the skies for the 1st time (video) # Science # Space # UnitedStates # UnitedStates # US
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They are also planning to fly suborbital science payloads, and there have been non-private/Government-sponsored astronauts as well (such as the Galactic-01 mission on VSS Unity that had three Italian crew members from the Italian Air Force and National Research Council of Italy). But the majority of customers are private astronauts/space tourists…
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Virgin Galactic names new spaceship Apeiron by public vote
The company announced its new Delta-class spaceship will be called Apeiron, a Greek word meaning "the boundless," chosen from thousands of submissions in a public poll that drew responses from 83 countries across six continents.
“Apeiron, the Boundless, captures the ambition of human spaceflight and the possibilities it opens for humanity.”
— Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic CEO -
1 outlet first by Investing.com News, 11d ago · read ↗
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background
Virgin Galactic delays next commercial flight to Q2 2027 — Virgin Galactic announced that its lead Spaceship's first commercial spaceflight, previously targeted for February 2027, is now expected in early Q2 2027, with a second ship following in late Q2/early Q3 2027, citing additional time needed for avionics software integration and validation.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by Universe Today, 10d ago · also Space, Newser, Yahoo Tech
3 more headlines
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first by SpaceNews, 10d ago · also FlightGlobal
1 more headline
- Virgin Galactic transfers first newly-designed spaceplane to base for flight testing FlightGlobal · 9d ago
and 1 smaller piece
What people are saying 5 voices from 1 site · best of 8 · verbatim
- Oct 31
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Yeah, the promise was that developing suborbital tourism would provide the funding to develop orbital capabilities. They have now spent around $3 billion dollars and not only haven't developed orbital capabilities, they don't even have operational suborbital tourism, or any plausible way to ever turn a profit with the suborbital vehicle they're…
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Blahdy-fuckin'-blah. If we wait for everything to be perfect, we'll never make any progress.
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Not acording to several independent tech. https://gizmodo.com/richard-branson-unveils-a-shiny-new-spaceplane-for-the-ultra-rich-to-almost-reach-space-2000832346 But we will see this in 2027 maybe they have found extra thrust in those engines.
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This is cool and all, but we have SOOOOOOOO many other important matters in the US and the world to deal with... like a country rapidly falling apart and genocides and illegal wars and the lack of healthcare and AI data centers sucking up very vital water supplies, etc.
- Oct 30
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This was called out as a likely problem way back in the X-Prize days. The vehicle they made was very innovative but it seemed like a technological and operational dead end. There are too many weird compromises that are strongly limiting. As time has gone on that pronouncement has only seemed more true.