Commercial spacecraft

Private spaceflight is flight beyond the Kármán line (above the nominal edge of space at 100 km (62 mi) Earth altitude)—or the development of new 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 2000s, entrepreneurs began designing and—by the 2010s, deploying—competitive space systems to the national-monopoly governmental systems of the early decades of the space age. These new offerings have brought about significant market competition in space launch services after 2010 that had not been present previously.

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