Name a Virgin Galactic Spaceship: The 2026 Public Vote

A spaceship’s name outlives the machine. Enterprise is gone; Unity is retired. Both are still the names people say when they tell the story of how private spaceflight began. So it is a real thing Virgin Galactic is handing over: from August 11 through August 27, 2026, the company is letting the public vote on the name of one of its next spaceships, and whichever word wins gets painted on a vehicle that will carry strangers above the edge of space for years.

The four finalists

Each finalist comes with a short case Virgin Galactic wrote for it. Here is what is on the ballot and what each name is reaching for.

My own read: Explorer is the safe, legible choice and Apeiron is the one with a story you would actually tell at the dinner table. But it is not my vote to spend — it is a rare case where a space company is asking the public to decide something that sticks.

How to vote

• When: August 11 through August 27, 2026.
• Who: Everyone age 13 and up — you do not need a ticket or a reservation.
• Where: the official Name a Spaceship page.
• Cost: free. This is a brand and community campaign, not a sweepstakes with a prize attached.

If you are reading this after August 27, the vote has closed and Virgin Galactic will have announced the winning name. We will update this page with the result.

Why Virgin Galactic ships are named this way

Every Virgin Galactic spaceship carries the prefix VSS — short for Virgin Space Ship. The aircraft that carry them to launch altitude are VMS, for Virgin Mother Ship. The names themselves have always leaned on a single idea: optimism you can say in one word.

That is the tradition this vote sits inside, and it is worth knowing the ships that came before, because it tells you how young this whole business still is.

VSS Enterprise (2009–2014)

The first SpaceShipTwo, rolled out in 2009 and named after the fictional starship. It never reached space: on October 31, 2014, a test flight broke apart in the air when its feathering system deployed early, killing co-pilot Michael Alsbury. The accident reshaped how the vehicle is flown and set the program back years. It is the sober half of the story, and the reason names on these ships are not chosen lightly.

VSS Unity (2016–2024)

The second SpaceShipTwo and the one that finally worked. Stephen Hawking named it — Virgin Galactic played a recorded message from him at the 2016 unveiling, and the name was his. Unity carried Richard Branson and the company’s first paying-era crews to the edge of space, then was retired in 2024 after proving the concept. It was a development ship, not a fleet, which is exactly why the next generation exists.

VSS Imagine and VMS Eve

VSS Imagine, a mirror-skinned SpaceShip III, was unveiled in 2021 but never flew commercially; that design line was set aside in favor of the Delta ships. The mothership, VMS Eve, is named after Richard Branson’s mother — a quieter, more personal name than the ships it launches, and one of the few that points at a real person.

The Delta class — what this vote is really naming

Virgin Galactic’s current fleet is the Delta class: next-generation spaceplanes designed to fly far more often than Unity ever could — up to eight missions a month, six passengers at a time — on a repeatable commercial schedule. Unity flew a handful of times a year; the Delta ships are the ones meant to turn spaceflight into something closer to a departures board. The name the public picks this month goes on that fleet, which is why it matters more than a one-off marketing stunt: it is going on the ships that are supposed to do the flying.

For where those ships stand right now — testing status, first commercial flights, and whether you can book — see Is Virgin Galactic flying in 2026? For what a seat costs, our Virgin Galactic ticket price guide has the full breakdown, and the space tourism price index tracks every operator side by side.

The bigger picture

Handing the naming to the public is a small thing and a telling one. A generation ago, the only people who named spacecraft were governments and the astronauts who flew them. Now a suborbital operator is asking a 13-year-old with a phone to help christen a ship that ordinary customers will ride. That is the shift this brand has always been about: space stops being something that happens to other people. Casting a vote is free. A suborbital seat is not — but the direction of travel is the same one.