
by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor
Last year was a busy one for suborbital flights as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic conducted a combined four flights of their crewed suborbital vehicles. Despite hopes to the contrary, neither company flew paying tourists on their spaceships.
There were also 26 sounding rocket launches that carried scientific experiments and technology payloads above the atmosphere. The year saw:
- Japanese startup Interstellar Technologies conduct a successful launch of its Momo commercial sounding rocket;
- Texas-based Exos Aerospace continue to struggle with its reusable SARGE booster; and,
- the first suborbital launch ever achieved by college students.