Space Perspective, the Titusville-based company planning to launch passengers to the edge of space aboard lighter than air vessels, gave an update today about the status of the fabrication of their latest test capsule, one that will be used to prove in the company’s technologies as well as identify areas for improvement. This craft will be a major milestone along Space Perspective’s planned path to carrying paying passengers as soon as late next year.

“Spaceship Neptune’s capsule structure is now complete! This capsule will be used in our next test flight, which we are calling Flight 2. In 2021, we successfully flew a capsule simulator to space with Flight 1. Since then, we’ve been designing and manufacturing the pressurized capsule, which will be used in our upcoming uncrewed flights to test corner cases. Data gathered will inform the build of a commercial-grade capsule and pave the wave for crewed test flights later next year,” the company posted on the X platform on December 14th.

The post also said, “the completion of the capsule structure is the result of highly complex and integrated work that our Founder, Co-CEO and CTO, Taber MacCallum calls “one of the greatest iterative collaborations I have ever seen,” and marks a pivotal step toward offering the world an extraordinary, completely reimagined spaceflight experience.”

Space Perspective has previously announced that they plan to fly passengers sometime late in 2024, and that it has also sold out seats for its first twenty-five flights.

Those rides are expected to last about six hours, and will offer passengers a high level of luxury. Unlike traditional rockets that climb quickly after launch, Space Perspective balloons are expected to rise at a round twelve miles per hour, offering those aboard a gentle lift without the high-G experience of traditional space travel.

Talk of Titusville reached out to Space Perspective for additional comments, but they did not respond.