Will Whitehorn, the president of Virgin Galactic, announced at a spaceflight conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that most of the major hurdles have been completed for its testing of its rocket-powered spaceship in 2011.

According to the March 4, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald article 'Virgin to test rocket-powered spaceship next year,' Mr. Whitehorn stated, "We're not looking at a huge amount of time.'

He added, "As the year breaks into next year, we'll start moving into rocket motor testing and then into space.' Thus, testing of their spacecraft in space is only about one year away.

However, operational flights for paying customers are several more years away, with a length of time until such flights occur being as far off as 2015.

Whitehorn quipped, "If it's not [by 2015], I'll be retiring.'

However, Virgin Galactic announced earlier, in late 2009, that customers could possibly be going up on suborbital flights as early as 2011.

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December 7, 2009's Wired.com article 'SpaceShipTwo Christened VSS Enterprise' states, 'Sub-orbital passenger flights could start as early as 2011 from Virgin Galactic's space port in New Mexico which is currently under construction.'

So, this announcement by Virgin Galactic shows a bit of a delay in the development of its commercial spacecraft business. However, they are playing it extra cautious and not getting ahead of the game.

Mr. Whitehorn suggests that they will fly customers when it is safe to do so. He stated that the company will fly: 'when we're ready.' [Sydney Morning Herald]

Virgin Galactic has received almost 330 reservations from paying customers, totally up to US$200,000 per person. In total, the company states it has secured about US$45 million from customer deposits.

The Virgin Group, its parent company headed by Sir Richard Branson, has invested over US$100 million in the company since 2004.

In addition, the Aabar Investments, an investment group backed by the capital city of Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates), contributed US$280 million to the company in July 2009 for an approximate one-third share of the profits.