Space Adventures no Longer Planning Crew Dragon Flight

Space Adventures had planned a Crew Dragon mission that would fly higher than the ISS and without professional astronauts on board, a concept similar to the Inspiration4 mission in September.

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Space Adventures: No SpaceX Mission: Space Adventures has dropped plans to fly space tourists on a high-altitude Crew Dragon flight but has not ruled out revisiting the mission concept in the future.

Space Adventures announced in February 2020 that it has signed a contract with SpaceX for a Crew Dragon mission that would not go to the International Space Station. Instead, the spacecraft, with four customers on board, would go to an orbit twice as high as the ISS, staying there for five days before returning.

At the time of the announcement, Space Adventures projected flying the mission between late 2021 and the middle of 2022. The company though provided few updates about the status of that mission after the announcement, including who had signed up for the flight and when the mission would launch.

Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures, revealed to Agence France-Presse during a recent visit to Moscow that his company was no longer going ahead with the mission. “Ultimately our reservation with SpaceX expired and that’s not a mission that we are going to be executing in the immediate future,” he said.

Company spokesperson Stacey Tearne confirmed to SpaceNews that the company had dropped plans for the mission. “The mission was marketed to a large number of our prospective customers, but ultimately the mix of price, timing, and experience wasn’t right at that particular time and our contract with SpaceX expired,” she said. “We hope to revisit the offering in the future.” Read more on spacenews.com

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