According to the announcement, 20 people including an actor, an engineer and a poet have already signed up for the experience. The company’s CYZI suborbital spacecraft is designed to carry seven passengers to the Karman line, offering several minutes of weightlessness during the flight.
The news quickly became a major talking point on Chinese social media, topping the trending search list on Baidu. While many users welcomed China’s entry into commercial space tourism, others raised concerns about safety standards and questioned whether the company’s timeline was realistic.
Commenting on the development, Yang Yuguang, chairman of the Space Transportation Committee of the International Astronautical Federation, told CGTN that suborbital space travel is technically less demanding than orbital human spaceflight.
He explained that suborbital missions require a speed of around one kilometre per second, whereas orbital human spaceflight needs about 7.8 kilometres per second to maintain a stable orbit.
Yang said the main challenge lies in establishing a strict verification process to ensure complete safety, noting that final approval would only be granted after all required tests are successfully completed. He added that although the current ticket price is high, technological progress and economies of scale could reduce costs to about one tenth of the current level within the next two decades.
Regardless of future pricing, experts say the unveiling of the CYZI spacecraft has already made a notable impact on China’s growing commercial space industry.
