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Private spaceflight pioneer Virgin Galactic will build its spaceships at a new manufacturing facility in suburban Phoenix, company officials announced.
The company signed a lease for a site in Mesa, Arizona, near Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, which will be home to the final assembly of its Delta class of spaceships. The facility will be able to produce up to six spaceships per year, which would then be shipped to the company’s launch site in New Mexico.
The factory is expected to be fully operational by late 2023. The Delta is scheduled to make its debut commercial flight in late 2025 and begin flights with astronauts the following year. The spaceship is designed to fly once per week; company officials eventually hope to conduct 400 flights per year from New Mexico’s Spaceport America campus.
“Our spaceship final assembly factory is key to accelerating the production of our Delta fleet, enabling a rapid increase in flight capacity that will drive our revenue growth,” Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said in a statement.
The company did not disclose a projected workforce for the facility but said the site would create “hundreds” of jobs in aerospace engineering and skilled manufacturing.
Image Credit: Jared Ortega / Shutterstock.com
