Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin made a decision in January to abandon – at least for a couple years – its space tourism program that helped propel nearly 100 people to the edge of space within five years.
The move not only frees up Blue Origin to focus on its lunar lander program that would entail rocket launches along Florida’s Space Coast, but opens up the door to one of the company’s largest competitors.
With Blue Origin out of the picture, Virgin Galactic remains the only major U.S. company still focused on taking tourists with deep pockets on trips to space, where passengers experience weightlessness and stunning views. And as the aerospace company prepares to resume its commercial spaceflights in 2026, billionaire founder Richard Branson said Virgin Galactic could fill the void with its new suborbital spaceplane capable of making multiple flights a week.
Here’s what to know about Virgin Galactic’s plans in 2026 as Blue Origin shifts its focus from space tourism to its lunar program.
Richard Branson says Virgin Galactic to ‘fill that gap’ on suborbital spaceflights
Virgin Galactic is looking to capitalize on Blue Origin’s decision to take a hiatus from the space tourism market.
Branson, the founder of Virgin Galactic, said via livestream earlier in March to a space conference in London that Virgin Galactic can “fill that gap” created when Blue Origin announced at the end of January it would halt New Shepard flights for at least two years, Bloomberg reported.
New Shepard flights paused as Blue Origin focuses on moon lander
Blue Origin, which conducts New Shepard operations from Launch Site One in West Texas, hit pause on its suborbital rocket program in January 2026 in order to focus on lunar missions. To date, a total of 92 people have flown on the company’s New Shepard rocket to the edge of space across 17 human spaceflights, six of whom flew twice.
The decision comes as NASA prepares for a mission known as Artemis 2, which as early as April will launch four astronauts from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a 10-day trip around the moon without landing.
The spaceflight company, which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos founded in 2000, is under pressure to develop its Blue Moon lunar lander ahead of a NASA human moon landing – targeted for 2028. The U.S. space agency announced at the end of February that as part of a revamped Artemis 3 mission, at least one of the commercial lunar landers being developed by Blue Origin and its SpaceX competitor are now due to rendezvous in 2027 with astronauts in Earth orbit in a crucial test.
New Glenn rocket could launch Blue Origin lunar lander from Florida
The Mark 1 variant of the lander, developed on Florida’s Space Coast for cargo transport, could land on the lunar surface sometime in 2026 without a crew.
The vehicle, named “Endurance,” was seen in January rolling out of Blue Origin’s Merritt Island manufacturing complex in Brevard County to be shipped to Houston for testing ahead of its flight to the moon. The lander will ultimately launch atop Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral, according to Blue Origin.
The 322-foot New Glenn rocket, which launched twice in 2025, could also soon get off the ground again from Launch Complex 36 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida to deliver to orbit broadband network satellites for AST SpaceMobile.
What is Virgin Galactic? Company’s spaceplane launches in New Mexico
With Blue Origin prioritizing development of its lunar lander, the door is open for Virgin Galactic to hone in on the space tourism market.
Virgin Galactic, which offers civilians the chance to fly to the edge of space, is a tenant at Spaceport America, a commercial spaceport designed, built and run by the state of New Mexico.
Virgin Galactic has taken 32 people to suborbital space across 12 missions to date, including seven commercial passenger missions within the span of a year, Scott McLaughlin, executive director of Spaceport America, previously told the USA TODAY Network.
When will Virgin Galactic resume civilian space tourism launches?
Virgin Galactic has paused its own suborbital spaceflights since its most recent mission in June 2024, when the company flew four tourists to the edge of space and back aboard its spaceplane.
But the company appears on track to resume its commercial spaceflight program toward the end of 2026 amid work to develop an upgraded vehicle designed to be reused for faster turnaround time between missions, according to the company’s most recent financial report.
The company’s fourth-generation “Delta class” six-passenger spaceships, expected to enter commercial service in 2026, would replace the now-retired VSS Unity spaceplane. Each Delta spaceship is estimated to be capable of flying up to eight space missions per month, according to Virgin Galactic.
What happens during a Virgin Galactic spaceflight?
Spaceflights led by Virgin Galactic resemble a traditional commercial aircraft takeoff on a runway as the company deploys an air-launch strategy to get its vehicles to the edge of space. That’s a sharp difference from its competitor Blue Origin, which uses a standard vertical launching system to get its New Shepard off the ground for trips above the Kármán Line – the 62-mile-high internationally recognized boundary of space.
The VMS Eve, what’s known as the mothership, is a four-engine, duel fuselage jet carrier aircraft that transports the spaceplane to what Virgin Galactic refers to as “release altitude.” There, the VSS Unity separates from the aircraft to continue to suborbital space using its hybrid propulsion system.
Unity travels about 54 miles high, which is still within range of what the U.S. military and NASA define as the beginning of space.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com. Subscribe to the free Florida TODAY newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: As Blue Origin pauses space tourism flights, Virgin Galactic steps in
Reporting by Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
