{"id":38091,"date":"2023-05-08T14:43:44","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T14:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/virgin-galactic-to-start\/"},"modified":"2023-05-08T14:51:17","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T14:51:17","slug":"virgin-galactic-to-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/virgin-galactic-to-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Virgin Galactic to start commercial flight in late June, shares rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) – Space-tourism company Virgin Galactic Holdings said on Monday that a four-member test flight will take place in May and that it aims to launch its first commercial flight in late June.<\/p>\n

Shares jumped 4% after the company said the May mission would be the final test of the spaceflight system and astronaut experience before it opens up for commercial services. <\/p>\n

The company, backed by billionaire Richard Branson, had in May last year delayed its commercial service to the first quarter of 2023 due to supply-chain crisis and labor shortage. <\/p>\n

After completing a lengthy upgrade for its centerpiece tourist spacecraft in February, Virgin Galactic re-opened ticket sales for spacecraft flights, setting the price at $450,000 per person with an initial deposit of $150,000. <\/p>\n

“Returning to space is what we have all worked towards,” said Mike Moses, president of spaceline missions and safety.<\/p>\n

The mission crew will consist of Jamila Gilbert, Christopher Hue, Luke Mays and Beth Moses.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)<\/p>\n

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(Reuters) – Space-tourism company Virgin Galactic Holdings said on Monday that a four-member test flight will take place in May and that it aims to launch its first commercial flight in late June. Shares jumped 4% after the company said the May mission would be the final test of the spaceflight system and astronaut experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":38092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ470GD-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38093,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38091\/revisions\/38093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}