Rocket Report: Firefly lights the markets up; SpaceX starts selling trips to Mars
Welcome to Edition 8.06 of the Rocket Report! After years of disappointing results from SPACs and space companies, it is a good sign to see Firefly's more traditional initial public offering doing so well. The company has had such a long and challenging road over more than a decade; the prospect of their success should be heartening to the commercial space industry.
As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.
Virgin Galactic delays resumption of spaceflights. The Richard Branson-founded company plans to resume private space tourism trips in the autumn of 2026 after its Delta spacecraft’s first commercial flight, a research mission that was delayed from summer 2026 to also occur in the fall, Bloomberg reports. Virgin Galactic announced an updated timeline on Wednesday, when it reported quarterly financial results that fell short of analysts’ expectations. Revenue was about $410,000 for the second quarter.
Waiting on Delta ... The company paused commercial operations in June 2024 to focus on developing the upgraded Delta vehicle, which is being optimized for reusability and faster turnaround time between flights. Virgin Galactic had been selling seats on the Delta spacecraft for about $600,000 and said that it plans to raise prices when ticket sales resume in the first quarter of 2026. The company also recently adjusted the size of its in-house engineering team and reduced the overall headcount by 7 percent to control costs.
