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The two most advanced private companies in the space tourism market say they are only a few months away from the first embedded customer space, although both have remained cautious in their statements and avoid announcing official data that They want Virgin Galactic, a company created by British billionaire Richard Branson, and Blue Origin, a company created by Amber Billionaire Jeff Bezos, CEO of the Amazon Group, to take part in this race for space and money. is trying to become the first company in the world to complete the necessary tests. The two companies have radically different technologies
A few minutes of imponderability
For both companies, their passengers will not reach the Earth's orbit: their experience in imponderability will only take a few minutes , unlike some space tourists who paid tens of millions of dollars to travel aboard the Soyuz capsules and then board the International Space Station (ISS) in the year 2000.
Thank you to a cheaper ticket ($ 250,000 for Virgin Galactic and an unknown quantity for Blue Origin), future tourists will be propelled to an altitude of several tens of kilometers before returning to Terra. By comparison, the ISS is in an orbit of 400 kilometers
The purpose of these flights is to approach or even exceed the imaginary line that marks the border with the space, the Karman line, located 100 kilometers above sea level, or the line preferred by the US Army, at the height of 50 miles (1965 km)
At this altitude, the sky becomes darker, and the curvature of the Earth can be clearly seen. the Virgin Galactic case, six passengers and two pilots will be installed aboard the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity, a spaceship that looks like a private plane. VSS Unity will be attached to a carrier aircraft, called WhiteKnightTwo. Once released at an altitude of 15,000 meters, VSS Unity will start its engines and move towards the sky
There, passengers will float in the imponderability for a few minutes
The descent will be slowed down by an "opening": the wings of the tail of the space vehicle will be able to pivot, and the VSS unit will follow a trajectory in an arc before returning to a normal position of descent. Then the plane will land on a landing strip of a "spaceport" built by the Virgin Group in a New Mexico desert.
During a test conducted on May 29 in the Mojave California desert, the vehicle the spacecraft reached an altitude of 35 kilometers
In October 2014, an orbital vehicle produced by the Virgin Group dismantled in the air due to a driver error, and one of the two pilots died. The test was resumed with a new device
Virgin has reached an agreement to open a second spaceport in Italy, equated with the Taranto-Grottaglie airport.
Richard Branson said in May for BBC Radio 4 that he hopes he is himself one of the first passengers of the new Virgin Orbital Vehicle in the coming months. About 650 customers are on the waiting list, said Virgin Group representatives at AFP
Blue Origin
Blue Origin has developed a system that resembles traditional missiles – New Shepard [19659002] sits in a "capsule" – a booth attached to the top of a vertical rocket 18 meters high. After the launch, which will propel the capsule near the Mach 3 point, it will detach from the carrier rocket and continue its upward trajectory in a few kilometers. On one test on April 29, the American Capsula reached 107 kilometers
Meanwhile, the rocket will descend and execute a landing at a fixed, slow and controlled landing.
] After a few minutes of impenetrability, during which passengers can get up from their seats and look outward through large skylights, the capsule will return to Terra, and its descent will be slowed down by three huge parachutes.
From take-off to landing, the most recent test flight organized by Blue Origin lasted 10 minutes
Up to now only flights have been conducted with dummies to edge. Tests were conducted at the Blue Origin Center of Texas
. One of the company's managers, Rob Mayerson, said in June that the first tests with people on board will take place "soon". Another manager, Yu Matsutomi, said Wednesday at a press conference that the tests in question would take place "at the end of this year," according to Space News
. And?
SpaceX and Boeing are also developing capsules to transport NASA astronauts on board, probably from 2020, due to technical delays. The investments made have been considerable and both companies will most likely try to amortize them by means of flights for space travelers.
"If you want to go into space, you will soon have four times more options than you have Phil Larson, deputy director of engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. , said to AFP
In the long run, the Russian company that builds Soyuz vehicles is studying the possibility of sending new tourists aboard the ISS. An American start-up, Orion Span, announced in 2018 that she wanted to place a space station on the Earth's orbit for a few years, but this project is still far off
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