Excalibur Almaz
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Excalibur Almaz is a private spaceflight company which plans to orbit manned spacecraft, by using modernized TKS space capsules and Almaz space stations, derived from the formerly secret Soviet space program. Missions will support orbital space tourism, and provide test beds for experiments in a microgravity environment.
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[edit] Spacecraft
The TKS-derived space capsules, which vaguely resemble a cross between the American Gemini and Apollo capsules, are unique by Russian/Soviet standards. They are equipped to carry three passengers or operate autonomously, but unlike the American capsules the Almaz capsules are reusable from 50 to 100 times. They can launch atop any of several rockets of various spacefaring countries, and they possess a Launch Escape System to ensure the safety of their passengers. They use parachutes and retrorockets to return to Earth, and have soft landing engines which fire just prior to touching down on land. Water-landings are also possible.
The Almaz-derived space stations are closely related to modules used on the International Space Station, and on the Soviet and Russian Salyut and Mir space stations. This is because the design of the original Almaz (Salyut 2,3, and 5) stations was used as a basis for capsules on Mir and ISS. Excalibur Almaz’s space stations will feature the largest windows ever on spacecraft.
[edit] Company
Excalibur Almaz is based in Douglas, Isle of Man, with offices in Houston and Moscow. The company owns its spacecraft but contracts expert services, including refurbishment, launch, control, and recovery.
Company founders include CEO and space law expert Arthur Dula and space commercialization veteran Buckner Hightower. Chief of spacecraft operations is Leroy Chiao, formerly a NASA astronaut and Commander of the International Space Station.
Advisory Board members include: former Johnson Space Center Director, George Abbey; former Kennedy Space Center Director and former President of Lockheed Martin Space Operations, Jay Honeycutt; former space shuttle astronaut and VASIMR plasma rocket engine inventor, Franklin Chang-Diaz; former French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien, and former Russian cosmonauts, Vladimir Titov and Yuri Glazkov.
[edit] Sources
Siddiqi, Asif A., The Almaz Space Station Complex: A History. 1964-1992, part 1, JBIS, Vol 54, No 11/12, November/December 2001.
Excalibur Almaz Limited AAS Presentation, Nov. 16, 2005
Dr. Jamie Floyd, Assessment of the Almaz Capsule for Space Station Assured Crew Return (ACRV), McDonnell Douglas Aerospace MDC 97W5151, January 1997.
