Space Tourism – Spaceflight Now

Space Adventures announces plans to fly private citizens on SpaceX crew capsule

February 18, 2020

Building on development for NASA’s commercial crew program, Space Adventures announced an agreement Tuesday with SpaceX to fly up to four paying space tourists on a standalone mission aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft in late 2021 or 2022 that could reach an altitude two-to-three times higher than the International Space Station.

Blue Origin launches New Shepard on 12th test flight

December 11, 2019

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched a reusable New Shepard rocket Wednesday, boosting an unpiloted capsule on a successful up-and-down flight to space in the 12th test of a spacecraft designed to carry “space tourists” and other commercial astronauts on brief forays above the atmosphere.

Blue Origin preps for suborbital launch

December 10, 2019

After poor weather scrubbed a launch attempt Tuesday, Blue Origin plans to launch the 12th flight of the company’s New Shepard suborbital booster Wednesday from West Texas with a package of research payloads.

Virgin Galactic to move remaining SpaceShipTwo test flights to New Mexico

May 10, 2019

Virgin Galactic will conduct the remaining test flights for the company’s SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket plane from southern New Mexico after moving staff and equipment from California over the next few months, officials announced Friday.

Blue Origin ‘one step closer’ to human flights after successful suborbital launch

May 2, 2019

Taking another step toward flying space tourists to the edge of space, Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin again flew its New Shepard suborbital booster Thursday with a package of microgravity research experiments.

Blue Origin readies reusable suborbital launcher for another flight

May 1, 2019

Blue Origin teams in West Texas are preparing for another launch of the company’s reusable New Shepard suborbital rocket Thursday to loft dozens of microgravity research payloads to the edge of space.

Virgin Galactic stages second piloted spaceflight

February 22, 2019

Two test pilots and their instructor flew Virgin Galactic’s winged spaceplane out of the discernible atmosphere Friday for the second time in nine weeks, a successful sub-orbital flight that moves Richard Branson’s company one step closer to its goal of launching paying passengers and payloads on brief forays into the weightlessness of space.

New Shepard launches NASA experiments to space, aims for human flights this year

January 23, 2019

Blue Origin, the commercial space company founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, launched a package of NASA experiments to the edge of space Wednesday from West Texas with a suborbital New Shepard booster, then successfully recovered the reusable rocket and space capsule a few minutes later.

Blue Origin plans New Shepard launch Wednesday

January 19, 2019

Blue Origin plans to launch its single stage New Shepard suborbital booster Wednesday as the commercial space company moves closer to flying people to the edge of space.

Blue Origin scrubs suborbital launch attempt, delays flight to early 2019

December 18, 2018

Blue Origin scrubbed the planned launch Tuesday of the company’s suborbital New Shepard booster from West Texas due to a “ground infrastructure issue,” and later said the flight would be pushed back to early 2019.