Virgin Galactic Unveils Its Imagine Spaceship

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc SPCE unveiled VSS Imagine, the first spaceship of its SpaceShipThree fleet.

What Happened: On Tuesday, Virgin Galactic released the first glimpse of its newest spaceship on a video posted on Twitter. Initially appearing gold before turning deep metallic blue, the exterior material was chosen to reflect the surrounding environment as the ship travels from land to sky and then to space, as well as provide thermal protection. As anticipated, VSS Imagine is made with a modular design that will improve its performance in terms of accessing maintenance and flight rate. The interior of the spaceship was not shown.

Why It Matters: Virgin Galactic, while testing VSS Unity from its SpaceShipTwo fleet, has also been highly focused on designing the overall experience future astronauts will have as they travel to space. The sights, sounds and feelings its space travelers will enjoy are strictly curated to provide a transformative adventure. Last month Joe Rohde, a Walt Disney Co DIS veteran was brought on as a strategic advisor by Virgin Galactic to design the space experience for Virgin Galactic’s future customers.

"Imagine also demonstrates progress toward efficient design and production, as Virgin Galactic works to scale the business for the long-term," Virgin Galactic said in the press release.

What’s Next: Virgin Galactic will complete the next test flight of VSS Unity in May and commence ground testing VSS Imagine this summer from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Once this testing begins, Virgin Galactic plans to begin production of the next spaceship in the fleet, VSS Inspire. Tuesday’s unveiling of VSS Imagine marks the next step in Virgin Galactic’s efforts to eventually fly 400 flights per year from each of its spaceports.

“Today we unveiled our SpaceShip III class of vehicles, marking the beginning of the Virgin Galactic fleet. VSS Imagine and Inspire are stunning ships that will take our future astronauts on an incredible voyage to space, and their names reflect the aspirational nature of human spaceflight,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in the press release.

VSS Virgin Galactic)