Virgin Galactic performed six suborbital spaceflights so far this year, increasing the hype surrounding the space travel market. One would think 2023 would be a turnaround year for Virgin Galactic, but announcements that it is laying off 18% of its current workforce and reducing flights of its VSS Unity to “concentrate on higher revenue opportunities”.
NSR outlined how Iridium’s recurring revenue, and corresponding valuation, put it in a very different position from today’s SPACs in a forthcoming SpaceNews commentary. “The recent spree of space SPACs are marked by unrealistic projections,”. “Not counting Iridium, the average space SPAC has a $1.8 billion enterprise valuation built on assumptions it can grow [an average.
A year and a half ago, Virgin Galactic went public. Since then, the company has generated no “significant revenue”, nothing in the past two quarters, and has pushed the start of their commercial suborbital tourism service to 2022. Over on the orbital front, companies like Sierra Nevada, Boeing, and Blue Origin, are facing similar delays,.
As challenging as 2020 was, one part of our industry progressed and grabbed the media limelight, even into the early part of 2021: space tourism. Several tests, funding rounds and SpaceX’s commercial launch of a NASA crew kept the dream of space tourism alive. Through hardships and long development time, demand for space tourism remains.
NSR’s Space Tourism & Travel Markets, 2nd Edition report released today forecasts global cumulative revenues of $7.9 B generated by 2030. The market is driven by suborbital tourism, which will accelerate once Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin launches take place in late 2021.