Virgin Galactic's development and testing program is moving cross-country to Spaceport America, New Mexico as the company gets ready to offer flights for space tourists.
Virgin's previous test flights of SpaceShipTwo, which included flying the first female (Virgin employee Beth Moses) past the U.S. Army's boundary of space earlier this year, traditionally took place at Mojave, Calif.
But this move has been lurking in the background for a while. The two entities previously promised to work with one another in the mid-2000s, with the state of New Mexico building up Spaceport America and Virgin Galactic pledging to offer its commercial spaceflight activities there, once the spaceport was ready. Some support and administrative facilities are there for Virgin, but commercial operations have been a while in coming.
The new announcement thus comes after years of speculation about the fate of Spaceport America. As of early 2019, New Mexico had spent more than $220 million for the facility -- but there have been no passenger flights in the years that have elapsed since the original agreement. There also are no tourists to watch the tourists fly, unlike the crowds of people who go to Florida's Cape Canaveral to watch astronauts go into space.
In a press release Friday (May 10), Virgin noted that Spaceport has displayed "great progress in operational readiness", which included completing facilities such as the hanger, fuel farm, telemetry and communications facilities, warehouse and offices.
Virgin said the move would take place through the summer, which involves 100 employees and moving its test spaceship (SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity) and carrier aircraft (WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve) to New Mexico. The Spaceship Company, which performs manufacturing for Virgin, will remain in Mojave and continue constructing new SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo vehicles.
What remains to be seen is what other companies will follow Virgin's charge. Recently, Spinlaunch announced it is moving to Spaceport, and there is certainly room for other companies to participate. But Truth and Consequences, N.M. remains a long way from Albuquerque and from other major urban centers, making it a challenge to attract companies and tourists to the desert plains. The wide-open expanses and gentle weather at the facility, however, will be good for testing.
Virgin founder Richard Branson has said (in multiple media reports) that he hopes to be aboard a test flight on July 20, the 50th anniversary of the first human moon landing. But it hasn't been an easy road for Virgin, which saw one pilot killed and another seriously injured in a test flight in 2014. Lots of work lies ahead to ensure safety and to make sure the space tourism market is a viable one.
