SpaceX doesn’t scare Asia’s space players
There is an increasing interest in commercial space, and Asian players are not worried about the heat coming from current Western heavyweights
By Nyshka Chandran
The commercial space industry is dominated by Western heavyweights, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos ‘ Blue Origin. But players in Asia say they aren’t worried about that competition.
As corporate spending eclipses government activity throughout the global space sector, Japan ‘s PD Aerospace and China ‘s Kuang-Chi Science are among Asia’s homegrown private firms planning to offer spaceflight services to civilians.
Koji Ogawa, CEO of PD Aerospace, acknowledges that it’s unlikely Asian companies can rival SpaceX , Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin, but he said there’s more than enough demand to go around.
“When we have reached their present stage, they will have advanced further,” he said. “Space tourism is a universal dream, not only for Japanese but for all people. It is important for us to view the Earth from space.”
His Nagoya-based company is currently developing a reusable sub-orbital space plane featuring a propulsion system that alternates between jet and rocket mode. It’s expected to carry eight people — two pilots and six passengers — over 100 kilometres above the Earth. The Kármán line, which lies 100 km above sea level, is the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
PD Aerospace says it intends to conduct its first trial in 2020, with the hope of commencing tourism operations in 2023. Because Japan is small, securing testing areas has been a challenge, Ogawa said. The initial price tag for a trip is set at 14 million yen (US$126,639) but Ogawa intends to eventually lower the cost to 398,000 yen (US$3,600). “We want to offer space tours to ordinary people.”