Astrium unveiled a “revolutionary new vehicle for space tourism” at a special event in Paris, France, ahead of the Le Bourget Airshow. The Astrium space jet is about the size of a standard business jet, and is designed to carry four passengers 100km (62 miles) up into space, giving more than three minutes of weightlessness.
This new craft may be the first real competition to Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo (currently being built by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, based on SpaceShipOne‘s design). Astrium’s apparently unnamed space jet has several portholes around the cabin, giving it an appearance to Rutan’s craft, but the resemblance ends there. Astrium’s design closely resembles a conventional business jet, and the system is planned to be a single-stage craft. Astrium plans to launch from a conventional airport and climb to about 12km altitude before turning off the jet engines and kicking in the rocket, which will take the vehicle up to 60km. At that altitude, the rocket will turn off and momentum will carry the craft up to the 100km goal. Upon return, the Astrium vehicle will again kick in the jet engines for a powered landing, following a trip that is expected to take about 90 minutes.
Astrium expects to being full-scale development in 2008, with a target date for the first commercial flight in 2012. They expect the entire project will cost about €1 billion, and are looking to charge passengers €150,000-€200,000.
In comparison, Virgin Galactic is already taking reservations for its flights. They require a deposit of $20,000 against a ticket price of $200,000.
Astrium is a wholly owned subsidiary of EADS, which also builds the Airbus line of airplanes. In 2006, they had gross revenues of €3.2 billion and 12,000 employees in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and the Netherlands. Its three main areas of business are Astrium Space Transportation (launchers and orbital infrastructure), Astrium Satellites (spacecraft and ground segment), and Astrium Services (development and delivery of satellite services).
For more information, see our previously published Stephen Hawking Going Weightless. Astrium’s press release is on this page. Virgin Galactic’s web site is here.