After more than a decade of absence, Russia has made a resounding comeback in the booming space tourism sector and aims to carve out the lion’s share despite Anglo-Saxon competition.
Aboard a Soyuz capsule, a Japanese billionaire and his assistant joined the International Space Station (ISS) on December 8 for a 12-day stay which will end on Monday.
This trip, carried out in partnership with the American company Space Adventures, has brought in tens of millions of euros to the Russian space agency Roscosmos, a windfall that it sorely needs.
Galvanized by this success, the boss of Roscosmos, Dmitri Rogozin, unveiled his next projects: offering extremely wealthy tourists spacewalks or even taking them around the moon.
“We are not going to leave this niche to the Americans. We are ready to fight, ”said Mr. Rogozine after the arrival of Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on board the ISS.
This speech and the shooting this fall of a very first weightless fictional film aboard the ISS aim to turn the page on the dark years of the Russian space sector.
Once a conqueror, it has been stuck since the fall of the USSR by dint of corruption scandals, budget cuts, serial delays and technical incidents illustrating the obsolescence of its equipment.
But in the nascent space tourism sector for the richest in the world, Russia intends to establish itself as a key player in the face of the emergence of ambitious American billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, as well as the Briton Richard Branson, who the first flights of a few minutes or a few days in space are sold at high prices.
Musk’s SpaceX company also began transporting astronauts to the ISS last year, ending the lucrative monopoly Roscosmos had held since 2011 and the retirement of American shuttles.
“Ferrari against Renault”
To compensate for this loss of tens of millions of euros per seat, Russia has therefore turned to space tourism for billionaires, a business that it had at one time developed in the 2000s.
“The Russian space industry needs regular orders” to finance itself, industry analyst Vitali Iegorov told AFP.
The amount paid by a single tourist – estimated between 45 and 55 million euros – finances the construction of a Soyuz that can carry a crew of three people to the ISS, he underlines.
However, the development of space tourism goes beyond simple financial considerations. In the Russia of Yuri Gagarin, Sputnik and other Laika, we want to be at the forefront.
“It’s a question of prestige. It is about getting young people interested in manned space flights. This is the future, after all! ”Says Dmitri Loskoutov, boss of Glavkosmos, the Roscosmos branch in charge of commercial projects.
Russia also has a card to play, especially against Blue Origin by Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic by Richard Branson: it offers a real space experience lasting nearly two weeks and not a short flight in low orbit.
“It’s as if we were comparing the Ferrari market and that of Renault”, laughs Andrei Ionine, of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics in Moscow.
But at present, Russian capacity remains limited and Mr Rogozin said on Thursday that he wanted to produce up to four Soyuz per year to increase the size of the Russian fleet.
Stand out
Because, as Mr. Iegorov notes, “the competition is starting to rage”, in particular with SpaceX which wants to take tourists around the Moon from 2023, when Roscosmos does not think it will be able to do so before 2030.
Mr. Rogozin even dreams of building a Russian space station with a module for tourists. A sort of orbital hotel.
However, observers question the profitability, as the true extent of the demand for such space excursions remains elusive. Beyond the cost, such escapades require months of training and then rehabilitation.
“There aren’t many people (willing to make such sacrifices), but we don’t need that much,” notes Mr. Ionine.
According to him, the tourism business of “Roscosmos is not threatened for the next five to ten years”.