SPACE TOURISM

Quite possibly, the next Russian winged spacecraft to make its appearance will not be a state-sponsored vehicle, but one financed by the private sector for suborbital tourist missions. Suborbital space tourism got a major boost in the 1990s with the initiation of the X-Prize (later renamed Ansari X-Prize), a $10 million prize designed to jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between entrepreneurs and rocket experts around the world. The cash prize would be awarded to the first team that privately built and launched a spaceship capable of carrying three people to 100 km altitude and repeat that launch with the same ship within two weeks.

One of the 26 contenders for the X-Prize was a consortium consisting of the Experimental Machine Building Factory (EMZ) in Zhukovskiy, the Russian Sub­orbital Corporation, and the Virginia-based company Space Adventures, which also brokers deals for millionaires wishing to fly to the International Space Station. On 14 March 2002 the consortium unveiled plans for a system called Constellation XXI, consisting of the M-55X carrier aircraft and the C-XXI suborbital vehicle, both designed by EMZ, which played a leading role in the Buran program as part of NPO Molniya. The M-55X is a modified version of the M-55 “Geofizika”, a high – altitude research aircraft that made its debut in 1988. Journalists invited to EMZ’s facilities were shown one of the M-55 aircraft with a wooden mock-up of the rocket plane suspended above it. The C-XXI was described as a 7.7 m long and 2.02 m high vehicle capable of carrying one pilot and two passengers. It was made up of a crew module and a jettisonable engine unit.

The plan was for the M-55X to carry the C-XXI to an altitude of 17 km, where the pair would separate at a speed of 750 km/h. Shortly afterwards, the C-XXI would ignite a solid-fuel rocket engine that would accelerate it to a speed of 1,600 km/h and take it to an altitude of 50 km. After engine burnout, the engine unit would be separated, while the rocket plane continued to an altitude of over 100 km, allowing the passengers to experience 3 to 5 minutes of weightlessness. The C-XXI would then make a 360° turn to glide to a landing on an ordinary runway at a speed of 220 km/h. All three crew members were supposed to wear pressure suits and could be ejected from the vehicle during the entire piggyback ride on the M-55X as well as during the early and final stages of the ship’s autonomous flight [33].

The Ansari X-Prize was eventually won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures/Scaled Composites, the team led by the famed US aerospace designer Burt Rutan and sponsored by financier Paul Allen. After several powered test flights earlier in the year, the team’s SpaceShipOne, dropped from the White Knight One carrier aircraft, made two successful suborbital flights in September-October 2004 less than two weeks apart. Building upon the success of SpaceShipOne, Rutan teamed up in July 2005 with the British business tycoon Richard Branson to form a new aerospace production company (the “Spaceship Company”) that will build a fleet of commer­cial suborbital spaceships (SpaceShipTwo) and launch aircraft (White Knight Two). Owned and operated by a company called Virgin Galactic, at least five ships will be carrying two pilots and up to six paying passengers on suborbital flights reaching an altitude of 140 km.

Although Constellation XXI lost out in the X-Prize competition, its design now serves as the basis for a new suborbital tourist project that may eventually compete with Virgin Galactic. Space Adventures has again joined forces with EMZ to build an advanced version of the C-XXI that will use the same M-55X as its parent aircraft. Dubbed Explorer, the rocket plane will be able to haul five people to the edge of space and have emergency rescue systems similar to those of its predecessor. Also part of the partnership is Texas-based Prodea, a firm founded by the Ansari family, which put up the $10 million prize money for the X-Prize competition. Space Adventures intends to sell Explorer vehicles to operator companies to conduct the actual missions. It has deals in place to fly the Explorer vehicles from spaceports near major airports in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore [34].