Enlarge / Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spacecraft completed a glide test Wednesday. (credit: Virgin Galactic)

The VSS Unity spacecraft did not make a powered flight with its rocket engine on Wednesday, but it cleared the final hurdle before doing so by performing a glide test in New Mexico.

On Wednesday morning, the VMS Eve aircraft took off from Spaceport America and subsequently released the spacecraft at an altitude of about 14 kilometers. After this, VSS Unity glided back to the runway in New Mexico, testing modifications to the spacecraft's flight controls and handling.

After the test, Virgin Galactic said the glide flight closes its "final validation test points" of a campaign to ensure the aircraft and space plane are ready to resume powered flights. To that end, the company said data collected during the flight will be analyzed in the coming weeks, and assuming the review goes well, the next mission will be a powered spaceflight.

Enlarge / Virgin Galactic's new vehicle, VSS Imagine , is lighter than its predecessor, VSS Unity . Will it ever fly? (credit: Virgin Galactic)

Space tourism company Virgin Galactic released its third-quarter financial results on Thursday. As one might imagine of a spaceflight company that has not flown since June 2021, the financials are pretty disastrous. The company reported revenue of less than $1 million against losses of more than $146 million.

After a long period of downtime, Virgin Galactic officials said the company is close to completing "modifications" of its VMS Eve carrier aircraft and VSS Unity spacecraft. The company expects to complete a glide flight of Unity , which is released from Eve at altitude, in early 2023. After that point, the company will conduct a powered test flight, likely with its own employees on board, before a research flight for the Italian Air Force.

And after that, Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said, the company remains on track to begin flying commercial passengers—people who bought their seats, some more than a decade ago—in the second quarter of 2023. As with most schedules in spaceflight, that timeline seems pretty optimistic.

Enlarge / Richard Branson was flying high in VSS Unity a year ago. Today? (credit: Virgin Galactic)

It has been 12 months to the day since Sir Richard Branson briefly departed this world, only to make a feathery return back to Earth, landing on a hot, dusty runway in rural New Mexico.

The flight marked a triumphant moment for Branson, who, just a week before turning 71 years old, fulfilled a childhood dream of going to space. In doing so, Branson beat fellow space-obsessed billionaire Jeff Bezos to the punch. The exuberance about his flight—and what it promised for Virgin Galactic—helped push his company's stock above $50 a share.

As Richard Branson went to space, he and his company seemed to be on top of the world.