Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin completed the first successful flight of its second New Shepard ship, while China’s Deep Blue Aerospace has announced it will launch paying customers into suborbital space by 2027 as both firms vie for early market share in the space tourism industry.
Blue Origin’s 27th mission saw the debut of the firm’s second human-rated vehicle for the New Shepard programme in a bid to expand its flight capacity to meet customer demand.
On Wednesday, the uncrewed NS-27 mission finally lifted off from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in west Texas after scrapping two previous launches set to take place earlier in the month.
The flight carried five payloads on the booster and seven inside the crew capsule (RSS Kármán Line), including tens of thousands of postcards as part of Club for the Future’s Postcards to Space programme. Each postcard will be returned to its creator stamped “Flown to Space.”
“We look forward to welcoming crew onboard RSS Kármán Line soon and offering the New Shepard flight experience to people across the world from all backgrounds,” said Phil Joyce, senior vice-president on the New Shepard project. “On every New Shepard mission, we’ve witnessed people return to Earth changed by this experience, and with a renewed sense of commitment to preserve our planet.”
While Blue Origin doesn’t publicly advertise its space tourism ticket prices, they have charged varying amounts to customers in the past, including $2.5m for two seats on a Blue Origin flight for the ‘open source space community’ known as MoonDAO.
Meanwhile, the Chinese firm Deep Blue Aerospace has launched a presale for tickets on its Nebula-1 rocket that it hopes will start regular launches by 2027. The firm is charging around 1.5 million yuan, roughly £162,000 per ticket at today’s exchange rates.
While Nebula-1 has not been sent to space yet, Deep Blue was able to perform a test launch in 2022 which saw the rocket reach 1km in altitude before landing back on the launchpad less than half a metre from its intended ‘bullseye’. An orbital launch is planned for next month.
In translated comments, the firm said: “Reusable rockets have become the key to reducing the cost of space tourism. Deep Blue Aerospace has focused on the track of recyclable and reusable rockets for several years and has always been at the leading level in this segment.”
Assuming next month’s test is successful, it plans to launch “multiple recovery and reuse tests” next year and in 2026 ahead of commercial launches in 2027.
In the latest episode of the E+T: Off the Page podcast series, the team spoke to space expert Dr Simon Foster about the ethical dilemmas and future possibilities of space tourism.
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