China To Launch Its First Space Tourism Vehicle

On Friday, CAS Space, a Chinese commercial space company announced that its space tourism vehicle will first fly in 2027 and travel to the edge of space in 2028.

The announcement comes just days after Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin revealed that its New Shepard Rocket, which launches freight and humans on brief voyages to the edge of space, would resume flights on Sunday, ending a nearly two-year hiatus of crewed operations.

According to CAS Space, its vehicle will contain a tourist cabin with four panoramic windows and a capacity of seven passengers per flight.

The company intends to launch every 100 hours from a newly-built aerospace theme park, with ten space tourism vehicles available to transport tourists to the edge of space in shifts.

Tickets will cost between 2 million to 3 million yuan ($415,127) per person per trip.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences, China’s largest governmental research institute, is the second-largest shareholder in Guangzhou-based CAS Space, which was founded in 2018.

China’s space exploration program has recently closed the gap with the United States and it may become the first country to return samples from the far side of the moon after launching the Chang’e-6 mission earlier this month.

That launch brought throngs of tourists to the launch location on China’s island province of Hainan. Before the launch, tens of thousands of people gathered at several viewing spots near the launch site, causing lengthy traffic bottlenecks.

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