The fourth space tourist will be Japanese citizen Daisuke Enomoto. He will pay $20 million to US company Space Adventures to fly on a 10-day mission to the International Space Station in October 2006. He will travel aboard a Soyuz TMA spacecraft, launched on a Soyuz booster from Baikonur with ISS expedition crew 14.
Source: Flight International
China’s AVIC has secured a contract from the China Manned Space Agency to develop a winged, reusable spacecraft called Haolong.
The UK Space Command’s first owned earth observation microsatellite has been launched, providing the inaugural element of a planned space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) constellation.
Orbital launch pioneer SpaceX is being contracted by the American space agency NASA to develop a so-called “US Deorbit Vehicle” that can safely return the International Space Station to Earth via controlled re-entry.
