excelsioris approximately 16 feet (4.9 meters) in diameter. “/>
Space Perspectives could begin test flights of a privately owned capsule suspended beneath a high-altitude balloon in the coming months, the company’s co-founder told Ars this week.
Florida-based Space Perspectives released the first photo of its completed test capsule on Tuesday. The company plans to use this pressurized capsule. excelsior, a series of test flights were conducted this year in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral. Tabor McCollum, co-founder and chief technology officer of Space Perspectives, said employees have also completed construction of the giant balloon that will lift the test capsule into the upper atmosphere for its first test flight.
The final piece of the puzzle is a ship named ocean spaceport voyager Used by Space Perspective to launch balloons and capsules. The ship is scheduled to leave its outfitting facility in Louisiana in the coming weeks and head to Port Canaveral, Florida, where Space Perspective will unload the capsule and balloon. After that, McCallum said, perhaps within four to six weeks, the ground team will be ready for the system’s first test flight.
But this is a test program and there could be delays, McCallum said. Meanwhile, Space Perspectives plans to begin building a second capsule for human test flights.
“We’re going to do a series of unmanned tests with this capsule. In theory, we could even fly people with this capsule,” he said. It’s designed that way and all systems are set up for human flight. However, our plan assumes that we will take what we learned from this capsule and build another one, which will be the first manned flight capsule. And this remains an unmanned test capsule. ”
Soar to the ends of the “universe”
These tests are a prelude to Space Perspective’s scheduled commercial flight program, which will take paying customers to 100,000 feet (about 30 kilometers), about three times the cruising altitude of a typical commercial airliner. From an altitude of 100,000 feet, Space Perspective customers will have panoramic views of the ground and ocean far below, the sky will turn pitch black, and the capsule will fly over 99 percent of Earth’s atmosphere.
Founded in 2019, Space Perspective is “driven by a desire to share the transformative power of space travel with as many people as possible,” the company says on its website. In reality, the company plans to offer customers an experience similar to spaceflight, but with some key differences.
Essentially, passengers on Space Perspectives’ high-altitude balloons will see views similar to those seen on board Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spacecraft, the company says. However, Space Perspective’s vehicles do not expose customers to significant G-forces or the dangers of rocket flight. Balloon passengers also cannot float in microgravity. Its maximum altitude is 30 kilometers, well below the U.S. government’s 80 kilometer space boundary and 100 kilometer Karman line.
Even so, the view from 30 km is truly spectacular. “You’ll basically be able to see all of Florida. We’re also looking at flying over places like the southern tip of Florida, so you’ll be able to see Cuba, the Bahamas, basically all of Florida,” McCallum said. I guess so.” It’s a wonderful view. ”
