Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Commercial space station to launch before 2010


The world's first privately financed space station could be launched before 2010.

Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, Bigelow Aerospace has successfully placed two inflatable spacecraft, called Genesis I and Genesis II, in Earth orbit. The company had planned to orbit a third spacecraft called Galaxy in 2008 before lofting its Sundancer space station, able to support a crew of three, into orbit in 2010. But a statement by founder Robert Bigelow that was posted on the company's website says rising launch costs have pushed the company to forego the launch of Galaxy and bring forward Sundancer's launch.

The company had previously said it planned to launch Sundancer in 2010. Although Bigelow has not given a new date for launch, the statement says the schedule change means private space habitats "could be arriving much earlier than any of us had previously anticipated".

The announcement came three days after reports that another company called Galactic Suite intends to put a three-bedroom space hotel in orbit by 2012.

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As you said recently, Paul, a new space race!