Small number of Virgin Orbit employees will return tomorrow to work on next mission

Last week we saw the first major collapse of a recent commercial space company, with Virgin Orbit furloughing its entire staff except for a handful of employees. However, there are some signs of hope, as tomorrow more employees will return for work with more coming later.

Virgin Orbit returning small number of employees to work

In an FCC filing, Virgin Orbit announced the return of some of its furloughed staff starting tomorrow. Space News reports a small number of staff will make the return and not a large number of employees.

Virgin Orbit’s filling was brief and stated while some of the workforce will return to work on the company’s next mission, the remaining employees will remain furloughed until at least March 26. The company hopes to return more team members to work on March 27 but made no promises.

Stock price jumps with news

This morning Virgin Orbit’s stock jumped from being near its 52-week low of $0.41 to as high as $0.77 – a spike that Astra can only wish to have as it remains below $1 with no relief in sight.

This shows that while space SPACs have not performed well overall, the stock market is still interested if they can be viable companies. Both the NASDAQ and the NYSE have a limit that stock prices must remain above $1. If Virgin Orbit returns more employees to work next week, that might bring them back up above that limit and out of the realm of a delisting notice.

However, this doesn’t put Virgin Orbit out of the woods just yet. While there looks to be light at the end of the tunnel, with some teams returning to work, until the company has a steady revenue stream and no longer relies on outside funding, Virgin Orbit will remain in danger.