galactic virgin (SPCE) could redo a test flight of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle as early as Saturday, a fundamental step necessary before commercial flights can begin. SPCE’s shares have increased.
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The test comes after the space tour company aborted a motorized flight on December 12, when it failed to reach major milestones due to a sudden stop in the ignition sequence of the rocket engine.
Management said the next motorized flight will test the work that has been done since the aborted flight.
“The team installed the hybrid rocket engine on SpaceShipTwo Unity as part of the pre-flight preparations for our flight test window that opens this week. Thanks to senior propulsion engineer and New Mexico native Rich C De Baca for the video step by step! ” pic.twitter.com/gXW3PMDa7V
– Virgin Galactic (@virgingalactic) February 8, 2021
The test will also include the original objectives of the December flight, which should complete data collection for the last two FAA verification and validation milestones.
These milestones are required before SpaceShipTwo can be released for commercial flights.
In addition, the customer’s cabin, as well as updated horizontal stabilizers and flight controls will be evaluated.
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Virgin Galactic shares were up 6% to 55.66 on the stock market today. SPCE shares were among the heavily shorted stocks that attracted retail investors’ interest in January and more than doubled since the beginning of the year.
Actions of Boeing (BA), whose venture capital arm invested in Virgin Galactic, rose 0.6%.
Wall Street has been extremely optimistic about the company, even though it has not started commercial service or generated any revenue. Most analysts still have a buy rating for SPCE shares, but some are getting nervous.
UBS downgraded Virgin Galactic’s stock to buying natives on Wednesday in a “careful” valuation approach. Analyst Myles Walton wrote that he thinks a successful Virgin Galactic test flight is already included in its share price. UBS now has a target price of 52 for the stock.
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