page_title: Private spaceflight
section_title: Spaceflight privatization
hierarchical_section_title: Private spaceflight / History of commercial space transportation / Spaceflight privatization
caption_attribution_description: English: Pegasus firing after drop from a B-52. NASA ID number EC91-348-4
context_page_description: Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency.
  In the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pioneered space technology in collaboration with affiliated design bureaus in the USSR and private companies in the US, entirely funding both the development of new spaceflight technologies and the operational costs of spaceflight. The European Space Agency was formed in 1975, largely following the same model of space technology development.
  Later on, large defense contractors began to develop and operate space launch systems, derived from government rockets. Private spaceflight in Earth orbit includes communications satellites, satellite television, satellite radio, astronaut transport and sub-orbital and orbital space tourism. In the United States, the FAA has created a new certification called Commercial Astronaut, a new occupation.
  In the 2000s, entrepreneurs began designing—and by the 2010s, deploying—space systems competitive to the governmental systems of the early decades of the space age.
context_section_description: Since the 1980s, various private initiatives have started up to pursue the private use of space. Traditional costs to launch anything to space have been high—on the order of tens of thousands of US dollars per kilogram—but by 2020, costs on the order of a few thousand dollars per kilogram are being seen from one private launch provider that was an early 2000s startup, with the cost projected to fall to less than a few hundred dollars per kilogram as the technology of a second private spaceflight startup of ~2000 comes into service. 
  The first privately funded rocket to reach the boundary of space, the Kármán line, (although not orbit) was Conestoga I, which was launched by Space Services Inc. on a suborbital flight to 309 kilometres (192 mi) altitude on 9 September 1982.  In October 1995, their first (and only) attempt at an orbital launch, Conestoga 1620, failed to achieve orbit due to a guidance system failure.
  On April 5, 1990, Orbital Sciences Corporation's Pegasus, an air launched rocket, was the first launch vehicle fully developed by a private company to reach orbit.
  In the early 2000s, several public-private corporate partnerships were established in the United States to privately develop spaceflight technology. Several purely private initiatives have shown interest in private endeavors to the inner solar system.
  In 2006, NASA initiated a program to purchase commercial space transport to carry cargo to the International Space Station, while funding a portion of the development of new technology in a public-private partnership.
  In May 2015, the Japanese legislature considered legislation to allow private company spaceflight initiatives in Japan.
  In 2016, the United States granted its first clearance for a private flight to the moon, from the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
caption: First launch of the Pegasus rocket, from a NASA-owned B-52.
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