* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Excalibur Almaz

Blobrana · L

The capsules are reusable re-entry vehicles (RRVs). Some were sent up and brought down in the 1970s, but never with any people inside. The two space stations are refitted Almaz orbiter spacecraft, which were manned surveillance mini-stations designed to spy on the Soviet Union's cold-war enemies while pretending to be research platforms. The Almaz spy-craft which went into space spent most of their time operating unmanned under remote ground control, though crews did visit at times aboard Soyuz capsules.
Fearing a possible space battle with the Americans, Soviet space chiefs actually fitted at least one Almaz platform with a powerful cannon which was test-fired in orbit, though no doubt any gun turrets have been removed from the modern examples. All of the Excalibur fleet has been upgraded by bolting on "off the shelf" modern systems.
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Blobrana · L

Isle of Man based space company shows wares at Westminster

The Island-based space company Excalibur Almaz attracted wide media coverage this week, when it displayed a space capsule outside the Houses of Parliament in London, as part of an exhibition to promote its plans for commercial space travel, from 2015.
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Blobrana · L

Plans for space stations not yet decided

The two space station hulls which were transported to Jurby last week could be used as 'space hotels', but there are no specific plans for them at the moment.
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Blobrana · L

This is the unlikely voyage of two Russian space stations which are to boldly go where no Soviet-era space technology has ventured before.
The two partially-completed Almaz space stations were shipped to the island from Russia before being transported by road to a warehouse in Jurby for storage ahead of research, testing and possible completion and launch to orbit.
They are owned by Manx-registered Excalibur Almaz, which aims to begin privately-funded space missions as early as 2013.
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Blobrana · L

Excalibur Almaz is a private spaceflight company which plans to provide orbital space tourism, and provide test beds for experiments in a microgravity environment.
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