PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. – The closest access yet to how a balloon ride to the stratosphere will work was shared with reporters and Space Perspective employees Thursday as the company’s Voyager ship docked with its Neptune capsule at Port Canaveral.
On Sunday, the Spaceship Neptune-Excelsior capsule powered by a SpaceBalloon completed an uncrewed test flight to an altitude of 100,000 feet before returning to Earth.
Space Perspective says it’s sold more than 1,800, $125,000 tickets for the slow, gentle six-hour ride which will include a meal and drinks as guests marvel at the thin blue line of Earth’s atmosphere.
Onboard the Voyager ship that Neptune takes flight from, co-founder/co-CEO Jane Poynter talked to News 6 reporter James Sparvero about how the most recent test helps Space Perspective make progress toward its first flights with passengers.
“What we’re incredibly excited about is that this flight not only demonstrated the technology, because it was pretty much picture-perfect, it also demonstrated all the way through the flight from launch, up to space, and back down to splashdown how incredibly gentle it is,” Poynter said. “And that is part of making it accessible.”
Poynter said that she and her husband, also co-founder and co-CEO, Taber MacCallum will be the first to fly when crewed test flights begin sometime next year.
“And then, customer flights soon thereafter,” Poynter said. “We’re aiming for the end of ‘25, sometime end of ‘25, early ‘26.”
Space Perspective will call its passengers “explorers.”
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