General presentation of Virgin Galactic :
To become a good trader by investing in the Virgin Galactic share price, you also need to know the company and its business segments perfectly. Here you'll find a more detailed presentation of it to help you seize the opportunities and challenges for the future.
The Virgin Galactic Holding Inc. group is an American company that was formerly known as Social Capital Hedosophia Holding Corp and which specializes in the aerospace industry. More specifically, the company offers manned space flight services to both wealthy individuals and researchers.
Virgin Galactic is currently focusing its efforts on the development of a space flight system aimed at offering its customers a multi-day experience with, as a highlight, a space flight that includes several minutes of weightlessness and views of Earth from space.
The group also has an aerospace development subsidiary called The Spaceship Company LLC, through which it manufactures space vehicles. It's based in California. The company's flight system is made up of three major components including a carrier plane called WhiteKnightTwo, a spacecraft called SpaceShipTwo and a hybrid rocket engine. Its spacecraft is capable of transporting pilots or customers and other payloads into space and then bringing them back to Earth. The carrier aircraft used is a double fuselage aircraft which was designed to transport the SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of approximately 45,000 feet from which the spacecraft is released for its flight into space.
The Virgin Galactic group belongs to the parent company Virgin and employs almost 906 people.
To know the competition of the Virgin Galactic share:
Here, you can take a closer look at the direct economic and competitive environment of Virgin Galactic. Although the space travel sector obviously has little competition given its strong technological barriers, the company still has two big competitors who could take market shares from it. You'll find them here.
- Blue Origin: First of all, you'll need to watch the American company Blue Origin, which was created in 2000 by the founder and majority shareholder of the Amazon group, Jeff Bezos. Its objective is to develop new technologies in order to reduce the costs space access. Its main activity is the construction of the New Glenn heavy launcher, which should make its first flight in 2021, as well as the development of BE-3, BE-4 and BE-7 cryogenic engines in order to allow the future propulsion of the United Launch Alliance Vulcan heavy launcher which will replace the Atlas V and the Delta 4. Blue Origin made a name for itself following the development of New Shepard, a single-stage rocket for space tourism which flew for the first time in 2015. The company also participated in the 2010 NASA Commercial Crew Development program to develop the space transportation system for crews at the International Space Station.
- SpaceX: The other major competitor of Virgin Galactic is the American company SpaceX or Space Exploration Technology Corporation, which is also specialized in the space flight sector. It was created in 2002 by Elon Musk and is one of NASA's most important providers which entrusted SpaceX with a freight transport contract towards the international space station for the COTS program. The company is of course working on other space exploration projects to the Moon and Mars and the Starlink program for high-speed access to the Internet by satellite on Earth. SpaceX is also in charge of the design, construction and sale of Falcon 9 launchers, Merlin engines that propel the Cargo Dragon ship and its manned version, the Crew Dragon. The Falcon 1 launcher, which was the company's first launcher, is no longer in service. The Falcon 1 had its first success in 2008 after having suffered three failures in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It made it possible to put the Malaysian observation satellite RazakSAT into orbit on its fifth flight in 2009. As for the Dragon space cargo ship, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, it supplies the International Space Station. The group currently employs over 6,000 people in California, has launch facilities on the Cape Canaveral base including one at Vandenberg Air Force Base and the other under construction in South Texas as well as a bench test for its engines, also located in Texas.
The strategic alliances set up by Virgin Galactic :
Now check out who the strategic allies of the Virgin Galactic group are with some recent examples of partnerships that the group has been able to set up and which have enabled it to gain growth.
- NASA: First of all, the Virgin Galactic group signed a new partnership with NASA in 2020 thanks to its VSS Unity, a space plane which deploys in mid-flight under the wing of a giant aircraft carrier and which can climb to an altitude of 80 km to graze weightlessness before descending to Earth. With this association with NASA, Virgin Galactic hopes to take advantage of its expertise in the development of supersonic jets. The purpose of this new partnership is to design machines capable of making high-speed air travel.
- Land Rover: Another partnership signed in 2020 was with Land Rover with a historic event since the Range Rover Autobiography delivered the new Virgin Galactic spacecraft to the Mojave airport and spaceport. With the presentation of this new vessel, the two brands have emphasized their desire to push the limits of travel and adventure for the future.
- Under Armor: Finally, in 2019, the Virgin Galactic group signed an exclusive partnership with the brand Under Armor, specializing in sports equipment, aimed at creating unique, comfortable and secure suits for space travel. The outfit includes special shoes and a limited edition jacket and is tailor-made for each passenger.
