Virgin Galactic’s stock bursts as the company plans to retake space flight tests as early as February 13

Virgin Galactic is preparing for its next space flight attempt, with the company announcing on Monday that it will retake its aborted flight test in December as early as February 13.

The space tourism company said that one of the main objectives of space flight testing “will be to test the remediation work that has been completed since … the onboard computer has stopped the rocket engine from igniting”.

“Since then, the team has conducted the root cause analysis, completed the necessary corrective work and carried out extensive soil tests. The next step will be to evaluate and verify this work during a rocket flight,” said Virgin Galactic in a press release .

Virgin Galactic shares were up 9% in pre-market trading compared to the previous close.

Virgin Galactic will also target each of the original objectives of the December flight attempt, “including evaluating elements from the customer’s cabin, testing the spacecraft’s live transmission capability to the ground, and evaluating the updated horizontal stabilizers and flight controls during the flight momentum phase, “said the company.

After the flight test, Virgin Galactic said it will “complete an extensive data review” to “inform the next steps of the test flight program”. Prior to the aborted flight in December, Virgin Galactic hoped to conduct three remaining space flight tests before commencing commercial flights. The second and third space flight tests were previously planned for the first quarter of 2021.

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