Yang Yiqiang, a senior rocket scientist from China, said that China's commercial space is developing smoothly and the country is expected to start selling space travel tickets under the orbit in 2025, with ticket prices likely to fall around 2-3 million yuan (286,400 - 429,600 USD).
Previously, American company Virgin Galactic, founded by billionaire Richard Branson, announced trips into the open space for $450,000.
The space tourism industry in China has entered the 2.0 era thanks to the applications and market forces from the 1.0 era characterized by basic production and research and development. Yang Yiqiang, a senior missile scientist and founder of Beijing-based CAS Space missile company, told the Times that China's space tourism industry is likely to catch up with the US's development level in the next 10 years.
The comments come as major economies are fiercely competing in the emerging space industry, with China and the US having developed some markets in this field. On September 9, US Vice President Kamala Harris called on agencies to submit proposals to authorize and supervise space trade activities in the next six months to maintain a leading position in this field.
Yang said that thanks to a series of intellectual property rights and talent nurturing systems as well as support from the central government, the market size of China's space industry has achieved a compound annual growth rate of 22.09% in the period 2015-2020. However, he said that domestic commercial space enterprises are still in the " accumulation" stage due to their relatively small scale, while only a few missile and satellite enterprises are making a profit.
The US began to promote the commercialization of the space sector in the 1980s and the sector became relatively mature when SpaceX was established in 2002. Meanwhile, China has only begun to encourage private enterprises to develop the commercial aerospace industry since 2015, but the industry has shaped itself after seven years of rapid development, including many areas such as missile launch, satellite and ground equipment development, satellite operations and satellite applications.
China currently has more than 370 enterprises focusing on satellite production, missile launch and downstream services related to Orbiter satellites by 2021.
In the future, Yang believes that China's commercial aerospace industry needs to be driven by market demand and technological innovation. He said the key to China's commercial space development is the application, not missiles or satellites, and noted that it is necessary to ensure that ordinary people can access the space.
In addition to developing reliable products and services, domestic private space companies need to build public testing platforms and shoulder the responsibility of setting international standards and serving the Ring Road and Road Initiative, as well as globally, according to Mr. Yang.
With the current growth rate, China's overall commercial aerospace market could reach 100 billion yuan ($ 14.3 billion) by 2030 - Wang Yanan, editor-in-chief of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Times.
In terms of long-term development, it is essential that companies enrich talented human resources, improve core technology and continue to improve missile capabilities, including greater payload capacity and reusable capability.
As of now, dozens of cities across China, including Shanghai, Shenzhen and Yunnan, are racing to develop their own local space economy.
In March, Vu Han announced that it had supported leading companies in the aerospace industry to establish research and development centers, production and assembly facilities in the city to accelerate the development of the national aerospace industry. The city is offering companies up to 50 million yuan in incentives for each project involved in the production of Chinese satellites, missiles and spacecraft, according to a government announcement.
