Suborbital tourism: what is it?

Suborbital tourism, confined to an altitude of more or less 110 kilometers, or even 150 kilometers, is not to be confused with space tourism.

Suborbital tourism consists of a manned flight to the border of space, crossed a short time and generally a few minutes. There is therefore no orbiting around the Earth as is the case with space tourism, whose stay is counted in days.

By simply crossing the symbolic boundaries of space (three in number) for only a few minutes, the time to experience theweightlessnessthe darkness of space and the observation of the curvature of Earthsuborbital flight appears commercially more attractive because it is less complex and less expensive to perform.

A tourist market with a bright future

After several years of uncertainty about the future of this market, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have successfully opened up this market in 2021 by each carrying out a first manned flight with passengers. The two bosses thus each flew aboard their vehicle during this first inaugural flight. Richard Branson aboard the Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo on July 11 and Jeff Bezos a few days later, on board the New Shepard by Blue Origin (July 20).

Although the two companies are established in the same market, that of suborbital flights, you should know that they are not targeting the same altitude! Virgin Galactic is content to send its customers slightly above 80 kilometers while Blue Origin has committed to the New Shepard flying over 100 kilometers in altitude. And as Jeff Bezos aptly pointed out, flights aboard Virgin Galactic will always have an “asterisk” because they don’t reach the Kárman line (100 kilometers above sea level).