Virgin Galactic's New Spaceship Arrives at Its Launch Base, Carried Under a Wing
Virgin Galactic's first next-generation spaceship reached the New Mexico spaceport it will operate from on Oct. 28, 2026, carried the whole way beneath the wing of another aircraft. The ship, named Apeiron, has not yet flown under its own power.
Virgin Galactic said in its release announcing the move that Apeiron is the lead ship of the fleet it intends to fly paying customers on, and that Spaceport America is now the ship's permanent home and base of operations.
Earlier that day the ship was named and shown in its finished livery at the company's factory in Mesa, Arizona. It then left Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport attached beneath Eve, the carrier aircraft that lifts Virgin Galactic's spaceships before release, and landed at Spaceport America. Eve was flown by Michael Masucci and Dan Alix, with flight test engineer Tori Crichton on board.
The company said the name, ancient Greek for "boundless," was chosen by public vote from a shortlist drawn up by its staff and members of its astronaut community, with people from more than 80 countries taking part. "Seeing the ship fly beneath Eve to Spaceport America was a moment years in the making," said Michael Colglazier, Virgin Galactic's chief executive.
Virgin Galactic says its engineers will now finish integrating and checking the ship's avionics, the electronics that fly it, while preparing for flight tests, and that customers will fly only after that test program is complete. The company expects commercial flights to begin in early Q2 2027, a date its release labels forward-looking.
On its own design figures, the company says each ship in the fleet is meant to fly twice a week and to last more than 500 missions. Apeiron has not flown, and no independent measurement of either figure exists.
Virgin Galactic says assembly of a second ship and of a static test article, a structure used for ground testing, is underway at the Mesa factory, along with work on a rocket motor assembly line.
