Suborbital Missions
摘要
Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are competing in the commercial suborbital astronaut marketplace, and each has taken a different approach, with SpaceShipTwo air-launched from a carrier aircraft and New Shepard taking off from the ground before separating from the crew capsule. The founders of each company flew aboard their respective spacecraft in July 2021, with Blue Origin pressing ahead with follow-up flights while SpaceShipTwo was grounded after falling foul of FAA regulations. Fast forward to the end of 2023 and each company has suffered an inflight failure, each has flown commercial astronauts, and each has flown research platforms.