Chinese state-backed company will launch space tourism flights by 2028

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese commercial space company CAS Space has announced that its “space tourism vehicle” will fly for the first time in 2027 and travel to the edge of space in 2028, state media reported on Friday.

The announcement comes just days after Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin announced that its New Shepard Rocket, which carries cargo and humans on short trips to the edge of space, would resume flights on Sunday, ending a nearly two-year pause in manned operations.

CAS Space said its vehicle will include a tourist cabin with four panoramic windows and the capacity to carry seven passengers per flight. The company plans to organize a launch every 100 hours from a newly built aerospace theme park, with ten vehicles available to take tourists to the limits of space in shifts.

Tickets will cost 2 million to 3 million yuan ($415,127) per person per trip, state media reported.

Guangzhou-based CAS Space was founded in 2018 and its second-largest shareholder is China’s largest state-owned research institute, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

China’s space exploration program recently closed the gap with the United States and could become the first country to return samples from the far side of the Moon after launching the Chang’e-6 mission earlier this month.

That launch drew hordes of tourists to the launch site in China’s island province of Hainan. Before takeoff, tens of thousands of people gathered at different observation points near the launch site, causing long traffic jams.

($1 = 7.2267 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Eduardo Baptista; editing by Sonali Paul)