Local residents in Jiangsu Province will have the chance to sign up for a trip to space in 2015 from September, when the Dutch Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) begins cooperation with a local tourism company to offer the service to moneyed Chinese people in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Due to the high number of wealthy residents living in the region, it is an important market for the Dutch company, said Deng Weixian, head of SXC's Hong Kong branch.

To date, the SXC has sold 250 space service packages. Customers can opt for a basic trip at a cost of $100,000, or upgrade to a more luxurious one priced at $220,000, for which 12 spots will be up for grabs. The fancier excursion includes five-star hotel accommodation, physical health checks, flight equipment, trip photos and video clips, and an astronaut flight-training course.

The first group of travelers will travel into space on the rocket-powered Lynx rocket plane, which has a suborbital horizontal-takeoff and a horizontal-landing.

Modern Express