Four people returned to Earth from a three-day extraterrestrial excursion aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Saturday evening. It was the first-ever flight to Earth's orbit flown entirely by tourists.
Billionaire Jeff Bezos has made a short journey to space, in the first crewed flight of his rocket ship, New Shepard. New Shepard, built by Bezos' company Blue Origin, is designed for space tourism.
Billionaire Sir Richard Branson has successfully reached the edge of space on board his Virgin Galactic rocket plane. The flight was high above New Mexico in the US in the vehicle that his company has been developing for 17 years.
U.S Space Perspective is selling tickets for flights that provide an astronaut's-eye view of Earth. The price for a six-hour trip up into the stratosphere and back is $125,000. Flights are scheduled to begin as soon as late 2024.
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space plane has conducted the first of three key test flights that should enable it to enter commercial service. Sir Richard has some 600 paying customers waiting to take the same ride.
Blue Origin recently announced they are planning to conduct the first crewed flight with the New Shepard by July 20th. In addition to the Blue Origin astronaut crew, one seat is being set aside for a commercial passenger.
Last week, Virgin Galactic, the space tourism firm owned by Richard Branson, revealed its newest design, SpaceShip III, with the first vehicle in this line dubbed “VSS Imagine.”
Blue Origin says it is “very, very close” to flying humans on suborbital launches to the edge of space after a successful test flight of a human-capable rocket and capsule last Thursday.
We are now one step closer to space with a recent U.S. paper that describes a way to build an expandable space habitat of concentric cylinders that can house up to 8000 people.
Virgin Galactic already has its commercial operating licence but it has to work through a list of "verification and validation" milestones before it can welcome passengers aboard.
SpaceX will work with space tourism company Space Adventures to send up to four people into space onboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The mission will send tourists to “twice the altitude of any prior civilian astronaut mission or space station visitor".
Virgin Galactic has reached another milestone in their fight test program. The flight took place on February 22nd and three people in the crew spent several weightless minutes aboard the spacecraft.
Unlike some previous test missions, Wednesday's New Shepard flight followed the same profile that space tourists will take. But The company has yet to begin selling tickets for the six-person capsule.
Elon Musk recently provided updates on the mini-Starship prototype that will making a test flight next year, including the fact that it will be built from a stainless steel alloy.
Virgin Orbit performed the first captive carry flight of its LauncherOne system Nov. 18. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, said he expected the first orbital launch to take place in December or January.
