Cosmocourse

CosmoCourse is a Moscow-based Russian private space company founded in 2014 with an ambitious goal of developing a fully reusable suborbital tourism vehicle capable of carrying six space tourists to altitudes above 200 km — significantly higher than the Kármán line at 100 km and well above competitors Blue Origin's New Shepard (approximately 105 km) and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo (approximately 86 km) — offering a longer microgravity experience and deeper black sky views at a target price around $200,000–$250,000 per seat.

CosmoCourse's design concept centers on a two-stage system: a reusable booster stage powered by liquid oxygen / liquified natural gas (LOX/LNG) engines returns to the launch pad via propulsive landing (similar to SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage), while a detachable passenger capsule with windows for each of the six occupants follows a separate trajectory and lands softly using parachutes and solid retrograde motors. The LOX/LNG propellant combination was selected for its non-toxic handling (unlike hypergolic propellants) and compatibility with existing Russian infrastructure and industrial supply chains.

Founder and CEO Pavel Pushkin, a Russian aerospace engineer, secured initial interest from Russian private investors and began technical design work. The company applied to Russian aviation and space regulators (Roscosmos, Rosaviatsiya) for development permits and conducted preliminary design studies, generating significant Russian media coverage as one of the country's first genuinely private space ventures independent of Roscosmos. A planned launch site was studied at Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.

However, CosmoCourse's development repeatedly ran aground on funding difficulties in Russia's constrained private capital markets, where aerospace investment appetite was limited and regulatory processes for private launch vehicles were undefined. Progress stalled through 2019-2021. Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent international sanctions further isolated the company from potential international investment partnerships and eliminated the Western tourist market (which represented the primary potential customer base) effectively terminating commercial viability for the foreseeable future.