In domain of the cosmos, India and China are betting on space tourism

The new emerging powers in space, India and Chinahave not only taken notable steps in exploration, from Mars to the Moon, but are also committed to the development of spacial tourism through various projects.

Last August, India wrote a page in history by becoming the first country to successfully land on the south pole of the Moon. China knows the hidden side of our satellite, where it arrived in 2019, in addition to being present on Mars with a rover and has its own space station.

Additionally, China, a rising power in the space industry, is on track for paid passenger space travel starting in 2025, led by the government-backed company CAS Space.

According to Yang Yiqiang, founder of CAS Space, suborbital travel is expected to be available in three years, allowing passengers to experience weightlessness for 10 minutes at more than 100 km altitude.

Prices could range between two and three million yuan (US$285,000 to US$427,000), but CAS Space seeks to make them accessible to the majority.

The company, which was spun off from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been compared to companies such as Blue Origin and SpaceX. The first test flight is scheduled for 2023.

This effort aligns with China’s ambition to become a leader in commercial space tourism by 2027, according to Yang.

China has seen rapid growth in the commercial space industry, with more than 370 companies related to this sector registered as of last year.

In addition, the island of Hainan, in southern China, is promoting another type of space tourism, in this case from Earth, as part of its strategy to become the capital of the sector in the country and with an eye on the people who want to witness rocket launches and experience the thrill of space.

India’s arrival at the south pole of the Moon, with the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, where the Russians had failed only a few days before, has put even more focus on its space plans, which include a commitment to development for space tourism.

The country is participating in two pilot projects with a view to offering commercial trips outside of Earth in the future.

Thus, it lends the balloon facilities of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), located in the city of Hyderabad, to the Spanish company Halo Space, which is in the development phase of a project to offer commercial flights to the stratosphere from of 2025.

Halo carried out its first test flight on December 7, in which it reached 37 kilometers in altitude using a stratospheric balloon that, in turn, carried a full-size prototype of an unmanned capsule.

In turn, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is designing an ambitious prototype to demonstrate the capability of human spaceflight, scheduled for the end of next year.

The Gaganyaan project plans to launch a three-member crew into a 400-kilometer orbit “for a three-day mission and safe return to Earth, landing in the waters of the Indian Sea,” indicates ISRO on its website.

The test missions, which will be unmanned, stipulated so far include aerial drop flights, platform mission abort testing and test vehicles.

Although this project does not yet contemplate the transport of tourists to space, ISRO hopes that the development of this type of missions will serve to “constitute important components for future sustained human spaceflight activities.”

Source: EFE