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Progress for Spaceport Sweden

Since the inauguration of Spaceport Sweden in January 2007, planning for launching tourists into space from Kiruna have started to take shape. Several meetings have taken place, both amongst the four Kiruna companies within Spaceport Sweden as well as with Virgin Galactic, the first operational partner.

At present, there are three important questions of priority of which the first is safety in the space area above Kiruna. How do the Northern Lights affect the passengers and the space craft? We have already received some positive preliminary results in this question, but to be sure there will be a special test rocket launched from Esrange Space Center in November 2008 to find out more.

The second matter is to establish the principal regulations for space tourism since no such rules exist for the time being. We have the benefit of following the start up of Virgin Galactic’s first commercial flights from Spaceport America already in 2009/10, and we believe that this will pave the way for our work in this matter.

We have also engaged a legal expert in the field of space and aviation to advance the process. Finally, the third important question for the moment is to decide how the missions are going to be organized amongst the different partners within Spaceport Sweden and between Spaceport Sweden and Virgin Galactic.

As we have five very experienced and dedicated companies involved, we are making strong progress, seeing an exclusive and unique product rising very convincingly. – The first flight from Kiruna is planned for 2012, and we are counting on one flight per day from January to March in our first campaign, says Dr. Olle Norberg, MD for Spaceport Sweden and head of Esrange Space Center, owned by the Swedish Space Corporation. – Spaceport Sweden is a shining example of how to create a cluster where different businesses can create brand new business opportunities together, says Mr. Yngve Bergqvist, MD of ICEHOTEL.

For further information please contact:
Dr. Olle Norberg, MD for Spaceport Sweden, Swedish Space Corporation
Phone: +46 980 720 42
E-mail: [email protected]

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