The Experience · A single orbital mission
Eight minutes up, days in orbit, four minutes of fire coming home. This is what one APSIS mission asks of you, and what it gives back, told in the order you will live it.
The flight profile · 4 phases
PHASE 010 → 80 km
Ascent / T+0 to T+8:42
From ignition you are pressed into the couch by a little over three times your weight. The horizon flattens, then bows. At max dynamic pressure the vehicle is working hardest and the cabin is loudest, and then the engines cut and the noise simply stops.
PHASE 02420 km
Orbit / 92 min per revolution
At apogee the engines are silent and the planet fills the lower window. You cross an ocean in the time it takes to read this. Sixteen times a day the terminator races toward you and the sun comes up again, gold then white, with no air to soften it.
PHASE 03420 km
Microgravity / Up to 5 days, crewed
Weightlessness is not falling and it is not floating. It is the quiet removal of a force you have felt every second of your life. Crew sleep tethered to the wall, drink spheres of water from the air, and run the payload racks that make each flight pay for the next.
PHASE 04120 km → splashdown
Re-entry / T-18:00 to recovery
Re-entry trades speed for heat. For four minutes the capsule is wrapped in plasma and out of contact, the windows glowing orange. Then drogues, then mains, and a deceleration that feels gentle only by comparison. The recovery ship is already on station before you touch the water.
The overview effect
AURORA AUSTRALISNIGHT PASS
The term was coined by the writer Frank White after he noticed that nearly every returning astronaut described the same shift. Borders disappear. The atmosphere reads as a line you could rub out with a thumb. The planet stops being a map and becomes a single living thing you happen to be standing on.
We cannot promise you will feel it. We can promise the conditions are exact: a clear cupola, ninety-two minutes per orbit, and no checklist standing between you and the window for the parts of the flight that are yours to keep.
92
minutes per revolution. One full day and night of the planet in the time it takes to watch a film.
What a seat includes
Everything below is part of one seat. There is no upgrade tier for safety, training, or the people you bring with you.
Medical screening through final sims, run at our facility and at altitude. You arrive at the pad qualified, not coached.
Laser-scanned and built to your body, yours to keep after the flight. The only one of its kind on the planet.
Up to four guests cleared to the viewing line, briefed alongside you, watching from the closest civilians are allowed.
A private day after splashdown with your people and the flight team, before the world asks for the story.
A standing seat in the alumni network: reunions, mission debriefs, and first refusal on every future flight window.
One physician follows you from intake to the year-after checkup. They know your baseline before the centrifuge ever spins.
Eligibility & training
Training runs part-time so you keep your life while you prepare. Five blocks, in order, each ending when you are ready rather than when the calendar says so.
Who qualifies
The honest version: most people who apply are eligible. The training exists to make the flight ordinary for you, and it works.
A full cardiac, vestibular, and vision workup. We are checking that orbit is safe for you, not looking for a reason to say no. Most people clear this without a note.
You build a tolerance to sustained G in steps, never thrown at it. By the end, the 3.1 G of ascent and 4.2 G of re-entry read as firm, not frightening.
In an altitude chamber you learn your own first signs of low oxygen, so that if a suit ever talks to you, you already know the conversation.
Splashdown drills in open water: exit the capsule, clear the hatch, reach the recovery raft. Practiced until it is muscle memory rather than memory.
Full-profile runs with your actual crew and flight team, nominal and off-nominal. The real flight should feel like the fortieth time, because it is.
One mission · Yours to live
Ninety-six seats fly each year and they fill eighteen months ahead. Tell us who is flying and why, and we will tell you which window is still open.