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Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. announced on Thursday that it has postponed test flights for its rocket space flight program for two months to resolve technical issues, further delaying its commercial flight promise.
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The space tourism venture, founded by Richard Branson, told investors in a conference call that its second and third test flights will be postponed until at least May, after the company has effectively resolved the technical problems arising from the flight on December 12.
| Ticker | Safety | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPCE | VIRGIN GALACTIC HOLDINGS INC. | 37.23 | -5.01 | -11.86% |
The last attempt in December was interrupted when computer problems prevented the spacecraft’s rocket from firing correctly. Instead of flying into space, the ship and its two pilots were forced to make an immediate landing by gliding back to the track of the outpost in the desert in southern New Mexico.
On Thursday, the company said it was confident the problem was “probably caused by electromagnetic interference or EMI”.
Virgin will now delay its launch in February “to mitigate it further” ahead of future flights, Mike Moses, Virgin Galatic’s president of space missions and security, told investors.
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (SS2), the world’s first commercial space line, lands at Moojave Airport after successfully completing its third supersonic rocket flight. (Photo by Al Seib / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“Our safety culture is built around the principle that everyone in the company has the ability to raise awareness of a problem,” said Moses. “And this is exactly the right approach when you’re dealing with human space flights.”
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Virgin Galactic’s CEO, Michael Colglazier, said that as soon as the problem is resolved, Virgin Galactic intends to “return to the test flight program sequence we communicated earlier.”
Colglazier estimates that the problem will take approximately eight to nine weeks, “which suggests that our next test flight will be in May”.
“When we see something that is not right, we face it hard, fix it and then move on. And that is what we are doing, ”he said.
Virgin Galactic had arrived in space twice before – the first time from California in December 2018. In June, Virgin Galactic marked its second successful glided flight over America’s spaceport.
The company has not yet announced a set date for its first commercial flight.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.