There’s new drama in the space industry. Boeing filed a lawsuit against Virgin Galactic, accusing it of retaining trade secrets that the two companies had exchanged while working to develop a new mothership, which is still in development.
During its most recent flight, Virgin Galactic’s carrier aircraft dropped an alignment pin which helps in the mating process between the mothership and the spaceplane. The company is investigating the issue, which could potentially delay its upcoming mission.
After a few short trips to the edge of space, Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity spaceplane is set for retirement, making room for a worthy successor. The company’s Delta class vehicle is gearing up for its debut in 2025, promising to bring in some profit with weekly suborbital flights.
In an effort to cut cost for the sake of the development of its next generation spaceplane, Virgin Galactic will lay off a number of its employees and save on expenses in hopes of bringing in future profits from its commercial flights.
After landing back to Earth from Virgin Galactic’s latest suborbital flight, planetary scientist Alan Stern and science communicator Kellie Gerardi received a ton of text messages from other researchers asking, “How do I get to do that?”
A crew of researchers is preparing to conduct experiments approximately 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface while on board Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane.
Richard Branson’s space tourism venture is set to launch its second commercial trip to suborbital heights in less than two weeks but the company is not too optimistic about the revenue generated by its private orbital tours.