Virgin Galactic rose 21% after the company founded by billionaire Richard Branson made a test flight into space for the first time in more than two years.
The VSS Unity flight that took off from New Mexico on Saturday marks a critical step on the road to the initiation of commercial space tourism, helping the company resume its established schedule to take Branson into suborbital space this summer and resume the tickets sale.
“We view this event as an important milestone,” Truist Securities analyst Michael Ciarmoli said in a note to clients. Importantly, the flight conducted scientific research experiments that generated revenue for NASA and collected key data for the Federal Aviation Administration, Ciarmoli added.
The stock was up 16% to 24.44, its highest level in nearly six weeks, at 9:34 a.m.
Virgin Galactic’s first launch since February 2019 paves the way for the next trial, which is expected to lead to more employees. No date has been set yet.
After the 2019 flight, engineers detected damage to the craft from the pressure built up after accidentally plugging the vents, according to “Test Gods,” a book published this month by New Yorker newspaper writer Nicholas Schmidle, who had access to observe the company.
The program suffered another setback in December, when Unity had to glide to the ground after a rocket engine failed to ignite when it was launched from the VMS Eve carrier plane.
A second flight attempt in February was interrupted by electrical interference in the aircraft’s avionics, while Virgin said this month it was investigating stress issues affecting Eve, before the spacecraft was cleared for flight.
