A new economic impact study has found that Spaceport America, a commercial spaceport located in New Mexico, contributed $138 million in economic output, $45.8 million in labor income, and $60.4 million in value-added production to the state’s economy in 2022.

Welcome to S-SPACⁱ! In this week’s edition, Virgin Galactic announced its next flight, Rocket Lab flew a used engine, Spire Global won a contract expansion, a new documentary chronicled Virgin Orbit’s final launch, and the latest news about Astra Space and Intuitive Machines.

With a successful flight on Thursday (May 25), Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) completed SpaceShipTwo’s 13-year-long flight test program, paving the way for the start of commercial suborbital crewed flights in late June.

Virgin Galactic is set to conduct the first suborbital flight of its VSS Unity spacecraft in nearly two years on May 25. The flight test, to be held at Spaceport America in New Mexico will be the final one before the company begins carrying paying passengers late next month.

Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) released its earnings report after trading hours ended on Tuesday that revealed its net loss widened from $93.1 million to $159.4 million in the first quarter as the suborbital space tourism company ramped up spending to expand its vehicle fleet and prepared for its first revenue-generating passenger flight in late June.

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity flew for the first time since July 2021 on Wednesday as the suborbital tourism vehicle made a glide flight test at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier had reason to be upbeat during the company’s earnings call last week. The company’s mothership, VMS Eve, had flown back to Spaceport America the day before following a 16-month overhaul at the Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field in California.

Blue Origin is still investigating the in-flight failure of its New Shepard rocket last September that resulted in the abort of a capsule carrying a load of experiments, the system’s chief architect said on Tuesday.

Welcome this week’s S-SPACⁱ.

Intuitive Machines (NAS: LUNR) debuted on the NASDAQ exchange on Tuesday after the company received only a fraction of the amount it had planned to raise by merging with the Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Welcome to this week’s S-SPACⁱ.

Lunar lander builder Intuitive Machines looks to join the Space SPAC index this week. Shareholders are set to vote on its reverse merger with Inflection Point Acquisition Corp. on Wednesday morning. If the deal goes through, the Houston-based company will begin trading on Nasdaq under the symbol LUNR.