Here's Virgin Galactic's new Apeiron spaceship

Virgin Galactic's newest spacecraft, named Apeiron, is set to begin its journey toward commercial service, though paying customers will wait nearly another year to fly. The name was chosen through a public poll. Apeiron is the first of Virgin Galactic's Delta-class spacecraft, and the company is moving it out of its Mesa, Arizona Spaceship Factory on Wednesday aboard a captive-carry flight with its Eve launch vehicle.

The spacecraft is headed to Spaceport America in New Mexico. Virgin Galactic says its engineering team plans to complete avionics software validation there before starting flight tests. The company attributed its latest schedule change to the need for additional time to finish avionics software integration and validation, describing that work as an exhaustive testing process.

The launch timeline has slipped again. Virgin Galactic said this week that the lead Spaceship's first commercial spaceflight is now expected in early Q2 2027, with the second Spaceship expected to begin commercial spaceflight operations in late Q2 or early Q3 2027. The company had previously pushed its next commercial spaceflight to February 2027 rather than late 2026. The most recent public timeline for Apeiron points to a mid-2027 launch, more than two years after Virgin Galactic's last commercial spaceflight.

That last flight came in June 2024, when the company retired its VSS Unity spacecraft. The gap means Virgin Galactic, a US-based space tourism company, has not flown commercial passengers for over two years as it works to bring the Delta-class vehicles into service. The updated schedule places the first paying flights in 2027 rather than this year.

For the US space tourism market, the delay extends a pause in commercial operations that dates to the retirement of VSS Unity. Virgin Galactic has not announced commercial service dates beyond those tied to the first and second Spaceships. The company says validation and flight testing at Spaceport America must conclude before the lead Spaceship is readied for its flight test series.

The Apeiron move marks the first public step for the Delta-class program as the spacecraft travels from Arizona to New Mexico. Virgin Galactic did not provide a specific date for the start of flight tests or the first commercial flight beyond its quarterly targets.

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