Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism.
Shannon Walker is an American physicist and a NASA astronaut selected in 2004. She launched on her first mission into space on June 25, 2010, onboard Soyuz TMA-19 and spent over 163 days in space.
Development of the Commercial Crew Program began in the second round of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, which was rescoped from a technology development program for human spaceflight to a competitive development program that would produce the spacecraft to be used in the Commercial Crew Program to provide crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS). To implement the program NASA awarded a series of competitive fixed-price contracts to private vendors starting in 2011. Operational contracts to fly astronauts were awarded in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing, and NASA expected each company to complete development and achieve crew rating in 2017. Each company performed an uncrewed orbital test flight in 2019. SpaceX operational flights started in November 2020.
The retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle fleet took place from March to July 2011. Discovery was the first of the three active Space Shuttles to be retired, completing its final mission on March 9, 2011; Endeavour did so on June 1. The final shuttle mission was completed with the landing of Atlantis on July 21, 2011, closing the 30-year Space Shuttle program.
Andrew Richard "Drew" Morgan is a NASA astronaut from the class of 2013.
Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by American space company SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX also launches private missions, such as Inspiration4 and Axiom Space Missions. There are two variants of the Dragon spacecraft: Crew Dragon, a spacecraft capable of ferrying four crewmembers, and Cargo Dragon, a replacement for the original Dragon 1 used to carry freight to and from space. The spacecraft consists of a reusable space capsule and an expendable trunk module. The spacecraft launches atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket and the capsule returns to Earth through splashdown.
The following is a timeline of important events in the history of private spaceflight, including important technical as well as legislative and political advances. Though the industry has its origins in the early 1960s, soon after the beginning of the Space Age, private companies did not begin conducting launches into space until the 1980s, and it was not until the 21st century that multiple companies began privately developing and operating launch vehicles and spacecraft in earnest.
Soyuz MS-12 was a Soyuz spaceflight which launched on 14 March 2019, carrying three members of the Expedition 59 crew to the International Space Station. The mission ended on 3 October 2019, when Soyuz-MS-12 successfully landed.
Soyuz MS-17 was a Soyuz spaceflight that was launched on 14 October 2020. It transported three crew members of the Expedition 63/64 crew to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-17 was the 145th crewed flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The crew consisted of a Russian commander and a Russian and American flight engineer.
SpaceX Crew-1 was the first operational crewed flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the maiden flight of the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft. It was also the second crewed orbital flight launch by the United States since that of STS-135 in July 2011. Resilience launched on 16 November 2020 at 00:27:17 UTC on a Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), carrying NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker along with JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, all members of the Expedition 64 crew. The mission was the second overall crewed orbital flight of the Crew Dragon.
Expedition 59 was the 59th Expedition to the International Space Station. It started with the arrival of the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft carrying Aleksey Ovchinin, Nick Hague and Christina Koch, joining Oleg Kononenko, David Saint-Jacques and Anne McClain who transferred from Expedition 58. The expedition formally began on March 15, 2019. Ovchinin and Hague were originally meant to fly to the ISS aboard Soyuz MS-10, but returned to Earth minutes after takeoff due to a contingency abort. The expedition formally ended with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft carrying Kononenko, Saint-Jacques and McClain on 24 June 2019; Ovchinin, Hague and Koch transferred to Expedition 60.
Expedition 60 was the 60th Expedition to the International Space Station, which began on 24 June 2019 with the undocking of the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft. The expedition was commanded by Aleksey Ovchinin, who transferred from Expedition 59 together with American flight engineers Nick Hague and Christina Koch. They were joined by Aleksandr Skvortsov, Luca Parmitano and Andrew Morgan, who arrived on Soyuz MS-13 on 20 July 2019. The expedition ended on 3 October 2019, when Soyuz MS-12 undocked from the station and Koch, Skvortsov, Parmitano and Morgan transferred to Expedition 61.
Soyuz MS-20 was a Russian Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station (ISS) on 8–20 December 2021. Unlike previous Soyuz flights to the ISS, Soyuz MS-20 did not deliver any crew members for an ISS Expedition or serve as a lifeboat for any crew members on board the station. Instead, it was commanded by a single professional cosmonaut and carried two space tourists represented by company Space Adventures, which had executed eight space tourism missions to the ISS in 2001–9. The flight to reach the ISS took six hours.
The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides commercially operated crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between the expeditions of the International Space Station program. American space manufacturer SpaceX began providing service in 2020, using the Crew Dragon spacecraft, and NASA plans to add Boeing when its Boeing Starliner spacecraft becomes operational no earlier than 2025. NASA has contracted for six operational missions from Boeing and fourteen from SpaceX, ensuring sufficient support for ISS through 2030.
SpaceX Crew-5 was the fifth operational NASA Commercial Crew Program flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the eighth overall crewed orbital flight. The mission was successfully launched on 5 October 2022 with the aim of transporting four crew members to the International Space Station (ISS). The Crew Dragon spacecraft docked at the ISS on 6 October 2022 at 21:01 UTC.
SpaceX Crew-6 was the sixth crewed operational NASA Commercial Crew flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the ninth overall crewed orbital flight. The mission launched on 2 March 2023 at 05:34:14 UTC, and it successfully docked to the International Space Station (ISS) on 3 March 2023 at 06:40 UTC. The Crew-6 mission transported four crew members to the International Space Station (ISS). Two NASA astronauts, a United Arab Emirates astronaut, and a Russian cosmonaut were assigned to the mission. The two NASA astronauts are Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg. The cosmonaut, Andrey Fedyaev, was reassigned from Soyuz MS-23. Sultan Al Neyadi was the commander of the United Arab Emirates' mission on the flight.
Expedition 71 will be the 71th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The expedition will begin with the departure of Soyuz MS-24 on 2 April 2024 with cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko continuing his ISS command from Expedition 70. It will end with his departure on Soyuz MS-25 with crewmates from MS-24 and MS-25 in late 2024.
Soyuz MS-26 is a planned Russian crewed Soyuz spaceflight to launch from Baikonur in September 2024 to the International Space Station.
