A Russian private company is developing a reusable spacecraft designed for private spaceflights to low earth orbit, TASS reports with reference to CEO of KosmoKurs (the company is implementing the project), Pavel Pushkin.

“We are going to start the first flights in 2020; testing of the spacecraft will be started in 2018,” he said.

The price of one ticket will be $200-250 thousand, Pushkin said. According to him, the capacity of the space tourism market for the next 10 years is about 14,000 people. So far American companies implementing similar projects have sold 700 tickets.

“We plan to have a large share at this market,” CEO of KosmoKurs explained. According to him, a national investor supports the Russian project. He declined to name the investor saying that he is a “very famous Russian industrialist”.

It is planned to use assets of Russian enterprises of the rocket and space industry for production of the spacecraft. “We will negotiate with United Rocket and Space Corporation. If negotiations are successful, we will manufacture the product together,” CEO of KosmoKurs explained.

The company also hopes to get support from the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and its scientific institutes. Thanks to their help the company will be able to increase the overall safety of the system. “In future we must make spaceflights as safe as the flights onboard an aircraft,” Pushkin said.

The company has already defined the possible launch sites. The flight will last for several hours (longer than the flights offered by foreign companies). The spacecraft will land 20 km away from the launch site.

Today the staff of KosmoKurs comprises 8 employees, including leading specialists, who participated in development of Buran reusable space shuttle and Angara launch vehicle, CEO of the company added. The KosmoKurs is the resident of Skolkovo Foundation.