Volga | Tourism, recreation | Technology & innovation
Private spaceport planned outside Nizhny Novgorod
30 Aug '19
CosmoKurs, a Russian company, has unveiled plans to build by 2025 on a site outside Nizhny Novgorod in the mid-Volga area a privately owned spaceport, or cosmodrome as Russians call it. The project may require $40+m in investment, the regional business daily Delovoy Kvartal reported.
A research institute owned by Roscosmos, the federal space exploration agency, earlier this week approved the idea and confirmed the technical feasibility of shuttling tourists into space and back using a reusable launch vehicle. What has yet to be approved is the exact location of the future rocket launch site in the Nizhny region.
The spaceport infrastructure is expected to include six parts: launching, maintenance, landing and guest lounge areas, an engine testing complex, and a ground control site.
According to CosmoKurs CEO Pavel Pushkin, the project will be “safe for tourists and useful for the region.” “We’ll have nothing radioactive and toxic,” he said.
The initiative envisions a 15-minute space flight for a group of six space tourists at a sub-orbital altitude of 180-220km. For a fee that may vary from $200K to $250K per person, each customer will experience weightlessness (zero-g) for 5-6 minutes and have a private porthole to enjoy the view of Earth from high above.