Excalibur Almaz To Use Soviet Spacecraft

This is actually a bit of old news, but I just stumbled upon it, so I figured I'd throw it in the mix.

British-based Excalibur Almaz Limited has announced some specifics concerning their plans to launch tourists into space. It plans to using Soviet-built reusable return vehicles that were used in the 70s to reach the classified space station Almaz (and suddenly the company's name makes a lot of sense).

The company bought the designs and the spacecraft from the Russian company JSC MIC NPO Mashinostroyenia (who originally designed the spacecraft). They are now updating them to be compatible with today's launch vehicles and to have improved capabilities useful for the orbital tourist (and scientific and educational) launches that it plans to conduct.

No word on price though. We'll see.

Trip to Space

Progress: 6.47%  Flight Time: 0:09:42

Solar Array

Progress: 6.47%  Power: 65W