Virgin Galactic targets 400 flights per year with two new "motherships"

Virgin Galactic is preparing to take more tourists to the far reaches of space, working with Boeing to build two new "motherships" that will take rocket-powered spaceplanes to launch the 'altitude. It's all part of the plan to reach 400 flights a year: daily and maybe twice on Sundays.

VG's approach, which has been flown a few times with test crews and founder Richard Branson himself on board, has the spacecraft strapped to the belly of a larger custom aircraft, which gives the first a quick start and obviates the need for rocket acceleration through the densest part of the atmosphere.

While the VMS Eve is certainly an interesting aircraft involved in a decidedly futuristic endeavor - namely space tourism - it has been in service since 2008. While its limited flights have made little difference in its lifetime , the years since have led to many improvements and efficiencies that can be incorporated into successor ships, and now is the time to build them for commercial operations.

To that end, VG has tapped Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing subsidiary initially focused on advanced autonomous aircraft, to build two of these production models by 2025. That's a little odd, because Aurora's experience is mostly in building smaller drones, not huge, unusual contraptions like these, but the company has likely incorporated more than a little Boeing DNA since its acquisition in 2017.

These new ships are "an evolution rather than a redesign" of Eve, a VG rep said, and won't carry a new designation (technically Eve is a WhiteKnightTwo model, an evolution of the White Knight One designed by Burt Rutan years earlier).

This explains why the CG render of the new ship is structurally identical to the old one, although it's unclear why it looks like they drew it in SketchUp:

CG rendering of the VMS Eve aircraft. Note the new, more purple "livery". This craft is not sponsored by Yahoo. Image credits: Virgin Galactic

In a press release, CEO Michael Colglazier said the new aircraft will be “faster to produce, easier to maintain, and will allow us to fly many more missions each year.” This echoes improvements to the spacecraft, which VG President Mike Moses described last year as more focused on smoothing business operations than improving performance or "fixing" anything. either.

Although I asked, it's still unclear what designation the new ship will have — it seems to be uncertain at this time and won't be revealed until the ship itself is deployed. It's not necessarily important, but good to know if it will be something like WhiteKnightTwoPointOne or WhiteKnightThree. Probably neither.

The intention of these production models is to achieve the goal of 400 flights per year, a goal that is unattainable with the test fleet. Thousands of seats per year means prices are coming down, although it will probably still be some time before regular people can go to space instead of renting a cabin for the weekend.

To be clear, this is all completely different from Virgin Orbit's aircraft and flight launch system, which is similar in principle but a completely different company and purpose, using a modified 747 to kickstart thumb to an orbital launcher. ...