Russia may soon have a launch pad for private flights into space. The projected private spaceport is to serve tourists who are ready to take a risk of soaring 200 km off the earth.
Skolkovo resident CosmoCourse plans to build the facility and expects to use their own spacecraft, now at the development stage, for suborbital flights. The project team has not yet determined the exact location for the private spaceport, the TASS agency reports, but most likely it will be located in the central part of the country. According to CosmoCourse CEO Pavel Pushkin, the company was offered to launch the project on the grounds of Baikonur; however, that option was eventually abandoned because of its distance from Moscow. Now the company is negotiating with several regions on the construction of a space travel facility.
The company expects to start offering first space flights to tourists in 2025. Six people can be on board the ship at a time; the flight will last about 15 minutes.
CosmoCourse has been working on a space tourism development program since 2017 – this year, the company obtained a license for space tourism operations from the Roscosmos state corporation.