YDS 2021 in Review

Virgin Galactic also launched its first operational tourist flight on July 11. The Unity 22
sub-orbital test mission over New Mexico was crewed by entrepreneur Richard
Branson, with passengers reportedly paying up to $250,000 each. The flight climbed
to an altitude of 86 kilometres, providing its passengers with four minutes of
weightlessness before returning to Earth.
Outside the US, a similar intensification of private spaceflight activities has been
observed in Australia, with Southern Launch and DEWC Systems conducting the
country’s first commercial launch on September 19. Similar success was enjoyed by
Black Sky Aerospace’s launch of the Sighter 150 on November 16 – Australia’s first
domestically designed, built and powered rocket in 40 years.
In China, Galactic Energy’s November satellite launch using its Ceres-1 vehicle
marked the county’s second private launch company to successfully reach orbit. The
event underscored China’s rapidly developing commercial space industry, and its
growing ability to challenge established international space companies in the
provision of competitive and affordable launch vehicles, spacecraft, satellites, and
launch services.
The growing pace of landmark commercial space launches
over the past 12 months bears strong indications for the
future of commercial spaceflight and space tourism, which is
projected to develop into a $805 billion market by 2030.
While the costs of travelling to space today represent an
improvement on the $30 million fronted by Dennis Tito in
2001 when visiting the International Space Station, the
opportunity to travel to space remains beyond the financial
reach of the masses and largely restricted to the highly
affluent. The future of space tourism will thus be contingent
upon the capacity for private space companies to address
socio-economic stratification, and to continually improve
upon the affordability and accessibility of space travel.
S P A C E - B A S E D A P P L I C A T I O N S
Additionally, the private space race has been diversified across space-based
applications, namely concerning the improvement of internet access via satellitebased
services. This is predicated upon the interest in reaching an estimated 2.9
billion people around the globe who remain without reliable access to the
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