What is suborbital tourism? – The Hindu

A: On January 31, Blue Origin, the private space company owned by Jeff Bezos, announced that it was suspending its New Shepard suborbital space tourism programme for at least two years to focus on its “lunar capabilities” instead.

Suborbital tourism is a form of space travel where paying passengers fly to the edge of space but don’t complete a full orbit around the earth. These flights typically reach an altitude of around 100 km — a boundary known as the Kármán line and the region beyond which is considered to be space. Unlike orbital missions, such as those going to the International Space Station, suborbital vehicles don’t achieve the immense speed necessary to stay in orbit. Instead they follow a parabolic flight path, similar to the trajectory of a ball thrown forward.

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The experience usually lasts between 10 and 15 minutes. Around the peak of the flight arc, the vehicle’s engines shut down and passengers experience several minutes of weightlessness, allowing them to float within the cabin and view the earth’s curvature against the darkness of space through large windows. Because the craft is not traveling fast enough to remain in orbit, gravity eventually pulls it back down through the atmosphere.

Companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have been the primary providers of these experiences. These flights require significantly less energy and less complex heat shielding than orbital travel, making them a more accessible, though still quite expensive, entry point for private individuals wanting to experience spaceflight.