It would be a first for over ten years. The American space company SpaceX announced this Thursday a partnership intended to send next year three tourists to the International Space Station (ISS). Elon Musk's company has signed an agreement with Axiom Space to give it seats on board its Crew Dragon capsule.
The trip is scheduled for the second half of 2021. It "will mark a turning point in the universalization of access to space", welcomed the boss of Axiom Space, Michael Suffredini.
A multi-million dollar bill
Each launch of its Falcon 9 rocket costs Space X about 60 million dollars (53 million euros). Adding the cost of building the capsule, the ticket for the ISS is expected to run into the tens of millions of dollars.
SpaceX had announced in February another partnership, with the company Space Adventures, to send four tourists in orbit to an altitude never before reached by a private flight. This mission is also scheduled for the end of 2021, but should probably not take place until 2022.
Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin as competitors
Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson) and Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) are also involved in space tourism. They are currently developing vessels capable of sending private passengers, for a few minutes, just over the space border, for 250,000 dollars (about 221,000 euros) or more in the case of Virgin.
In total, eight tourists have already made a trip to the international station, in the Russian Soyuz rockets. The first was Dennis Tito in 2001 for an eight-day stay at the ISS. The most recent was the founder of Cirque du Soleil, Guy Laliberté, in 2009.
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