Virgin Galactic’s Stock Price Plummets After Company Delays Next Space Flight

The shares of Virgin Galactic are down by 2% at Monday’s pre-market trading session after the company delayed its first commercial space flight due to some component defects.

Virgin Galactic Delays Its Next Space Flight

Virgin Galactic has announced the delay of its next space flight due to some technical reasons. According to the company, the next SpaceShipTwo suborbital flight has been delayed as the engineers check a potential issue.

The company said an unidentified third-party supplier notified it of a potential manufacturing defect in the flight control actuation system component. The space flight company added that it is currently conducting inspections with the vendor to ascertain if the suspected component needs to be repaired or replaced.

Due to the ongoing inspections, Virgin Galactic has stated that it has shifted its next SpaceShipTwo mission until the middle of October. The company was supposed to launch the next SpaceShipTwo mission by the end of this month or early October. However, the trip has been delayed for at least two weeks now.

Virgin Galactic pointed out that the suspected issue is not related to the incident linked to the previous SpaceShipTwo flight on July 11. The FAA had earlier pointed out that it wouldn’t allow SpaceShipTwo flight to fly again until it had completed an investigation into an incident earlier this year. The incident saw the vehicle fly outside of its designated airspace during its move back to the runway at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic’s Stock Price Down By 2%

The shares of Virgin Galactic have been down by 2% over the past few hours. The delay of its next space flight is the major reason why the company’s stock price has slightly retraced during Monday’s pre-trading session.

With the US stock market set to open in a few hours, SPCE could experience further decline. At the time of writing, SPCE is trading at $25.16 per share. Year-to-date, the company’s stock performance has been almost stagnant. SPCE was trading at $23.23 at the start of the year, and it is now trading at $25.16, up by less than 1% over the past nine months.