Virgin Galactic Announces Date For New Test Flight Of SpaceShipTwo Unity

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc SPCE, another recently discussed target in the Reddit WallStreetBets community, has about 70% of its total 208 million share float held in short positions. In the meantime, the company is focused on making the second test flight of SpaceShipTwo Unity, a passenger carrying spaceship, a reality.

What Happened: Virgin Galactic announced Monday on Twitter it's preparing the next test of SpaceShipTwo Unity with the flight window opening on Feb. 13. With the exact date dependent on weather conditions, two pilots will depart Spaceport America in New Mexico aboard SpaceShipTwo Unity to obtain and analyze data it originally sought out, as well as new information about the remedial work to fix the issues that caused the cancellation of its last test flight, Dec. 12, 2020.

Virgin Galactic also plans to collect data about the horizontal stabilizers and assess its passenger cabin and live streaming to ground devices.

Why It Matters: Virgin Galactic has almost completed testing of its space ships and plans to take its first passengers to space this year. However, in order for this to happen there needs to be a successful test flight. Investors were disappointed after the ignition sequence for the rocket motor on SpaceShipTwo Unity malfunctioned in December. Shares of Virgin Galactic opened down over 15% the following trading session.

What’s Next: Upon the announcement of the next flight window, shares of the company rallied 21% Monday despite Morgan Stanley downgrading Virgin Galactic from Overweight to Equal-Weight and giving a price target of $30.

Investors will be watching closely to see if Virgin Galactic has fixed the necessary technical problems from the mission in December, getting one step closer to its goal of bringing tourists to space.

(Photo: Virgin Galactic)