On January 24, 2026, the Beijing-based startup InterstellOr (Chuanweizhe) made headlines across Chinese social media by unveiling its ambitious roadmap for commercial space tourism. The company plans to launch its first crewed suborbital flight by 2028, carrying private citizens to the Kármán line, the recognized boundary of space.
The announcement centered on the CYZ-1 spacecraft, a reusable capsule designed to carry seven passengers. Unlike orbital flights that require extreme speeds, the CYZ-1 will reach approximately 1 km/s to touch the edge of the atmosphere. Travelers will experience roughly three to six minutes of weightlessness and breathtaking views of the Earth’s curvature before returning via a parachute-assisted soft landing.
🚀 China’s first group of space tourists has been revealed, including an 85-year-old scholar, entrepreneurs, an actor – and EngineAI’s humanoid robot PM01 from Shenzhen!
The commercial spacecraft “CYZ1” aims for its first crewed flight in 2028. Tickets: ~¥3 million. Future is… pic.twitter.com/GMa5BrJzFL
— Shenzhen Channel (@sz_mediagroup) January 25, 2026
Despite a steep ticket price of 3 million yuan ($430,000), the venture has already gained significant traction:
- Pre-bookings: Over 20 individuals have signed up, including a prominent actor (Johnny Huang), an engineer, a poet, and several business executives.
- Deposits: A 10% deposit (300,000 yuan) is required to secure a spot in the flight order.
While skeptics point to the 2028 timeline as aggressive, InterstellOr recently completed a successful landing-buffering test on January 18, 2026. This technology, using retro-thrusters and energy-absorbing structures, places them alongside SpaceX and Blue Origin as one of the few private firms to master land-based soft-landing systems for crewed modules.
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The company’s founder, Lei Shiqing, a former news anchor, aims to scale the technology to reduce costs tenfold over the next two decades, eventually targeting low-Earth orbit by 2032.
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