The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has closed its mishap investigation report into aerospace company Virgin Galactic Holdings’ (SPCE) July 11 Unity 22 flight, which deviated from its assigned airspace on the descent, Reuters said in a report.
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Furthermore, the agency has lifted a grounding order that it had imposed on September 2 after the company implemented changes on how it communicates during flight. This will enable the company to resume operations of its SpaceShipTwo rocket.
Virgin Galactic’s corrective actions include additional steps in the flight procedures to provide mission notifications to FAA Air Traffic Control in real-time and updated calculations to expand the protected airspace for future flights.
The CEO of Virgin Galactic, Michael Colglazier, said, “The updates to our airspace and real-time mission notification protocols will strengthen our preparations as we move closer to the commercial launch of our spaceflight experience.”
Headquartered in California, the company is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Shares of the company declined 3.4% on Wednesday but gained 10.2% in extended trade to end the day at $24.85. (See Virgin Galactic stock chart on TipRanks)
Earlier in September, Virgin Galactic said that it plans to launch another SpaceShipTwo flight from New Mexico, Unity 23, which will carry three crew members from the National Research Council and the Italian Air Force.
A fortnight ago, Cowen & Co. analyst Oliver Chen reiterated a Buy rating on the stock but reduced the price target to $30 from $51 (33% upside potential).
The analyst remains bullish on Virgin Galactic and views the company as an important leader in the commercial space flight industry.
Overall, the stock has a Hold consensus rating based on 4 Buys, 5 Holds and 2 Sells. The average Virgin Galactic Holdings price target of $31.30 implies 38.7% upside potential. Shares have lost 26.4% over the past six months.
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