Citizens in Space

Citizens in Space, a project of the United States Rocket Academy, plans to fly citizen-science experiments on fully reusable suborbital spacecraft that are now being developed by US companies.

Citizens in Space has acquired an initial contract for 10 flights with XCOR Aerospace, the Mojave, California-based company that is developing the Lynx spacecraft. It expects to acquire additional flights from XCOR and other companies in the future.

Citizens in Space is currently training three astronaut candidates to fly as operators. It will select and train seven additional astronaut candidates over the next 12 to 24 months. Citizens in Space is also inviting citizen scientists to build 100 experiments to fly on those flights, which are expected to begin in late 2013 or early 2014.

In addition to the general call for experiments, Citizens in Space will offer a cash prize for certain experiments deemed to be of special importance.