Space Adventures to Buy Launch Technology Firm
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Space tourist-to-be Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto of Japan sits inside a Russian Soyuz TMA spacecraft simulator. Enomoto is set to ride the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft to the International Space Station in September with the Expedition 14 crew. CREDIT: Space Adventures. |
The spaceflight experience firm Space Adventures announced plans to buy Fountain Valley, California's Space Launch Corp. Tuesday to aid technology development for future commercial spacecraft.
The Virginia-based Space Adventures - which brokers multi-million-dollar flights to the International Space Station (ISS) for paying customers - said the merger will bring valuable technology and expertise to the table for future projects.
"We're not talking about our long-term plans, but we are happy to have a wholly-owned subsidiary that has access to such valuable technology," Space Adventures president and CEO Eric Anderson told SPACE.com. "It certainly has technologies that are very applicable to commercial human spaceflight."
Founded in 1999, Space Launch Corp. focused its space efforts to develop launch systems for microsatellites. In 2003, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency tapped the California firm to draw up plans for its air-launched RASCAL - or Responsive Access, Small Cargo, Affordable Launch - program. The RASCAL program was cancelled last year.
Space Adventures is working with the Houston-based firm Prodea to develop and sell a fleet of air-launched Explorer suborbital spacecraft, and is a partner in planned spaceports in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.
The firm has also announced plans for trips around the Moon aboard Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft, and offers fighter jet rides as well as aircraft flights that simulate weightlessness for thrill-seeking customers.
Space Adventures is also looking ahead to the launch of its next orbit-bound passenger - Japanese entrepreneur Daisuke Enomoto - set to ride a Soyuz spacecraft to the space station with the ISS Expedition 14 astronaut crew in mid-September.
"We're looking forward to Mr. Enomoto's flight on Sept. 15," Anderson said. "We're very happy and we're running along at full steam."
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