It doesn’t appear that Zero Gravity Flights will be taking off from North Bay’s Jack Garland Airport anytime soon as the project appears to be facing some delays...and may not happen at all.
Canadore College, a partner in the project, has confirmed the news that S3 has announced the postponement of its Zero Gravity Campaign.
“I can confirm that we were apprised of this news before Christmas,” stated Jessica Charette, Canadore College Director of Communications stated in an email to BayToday.ca.
“We continue to work with the company to move the program forward.”
That comes after reports that the company is experiencing serious financial difficulties that include missed paychecks for salaried employees.
Read more here: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2015/12/20/s3-postpones-flights-ipo-financial-trouble/
Respected aerospace publication Parabolic Arc says in the article that, "Sources also said S3 has faced mounting financial difficulties throughout 2015, including rising debts and an inability to meet payroll. The problems began early in the year with a paycheck that came late. Regular paychecks were then suspended, with some employees receiving partial payments well below their salaried amounts on an intermittent basis when S3 was paid for contracted work it performed. "
BayToday.ca has been unsuccessful in numerous attempts to reach Swiss Space System officials, despite leaving phone messages, but a release on the S3 website confirmed the news.
See that link here:
http://s-3.ch/en/home/2015/12/18/s3-announces-the-postponement-of-its-zerog-campaign-and-of-its-ipo-
“Technical and contractual delays in the calendar of the young Swiss startup have resulted in the postponement of the ZeroG flight campaign. They were last scheduled to begin at end of 2015,” Swiss Space Systems officials stated on the website.
“Swiss Space Systems maintains its initial strategic direction, including the assurance that its customers around the world will benefit of a robust legal framework completely compliant with the commercial aviation regulation. The implementation of commercial and scientific parabolic flights through a certification as an airline is a world premiere. It requires long and detailed work with the respective airworthiness authorities.”
Swiss Space System officials were in North Bay back in October celebrating Space Week.
In October S3 officials anticipated the launch of their Zero Gravity flights out of North Bay in the spring or summer of 2016 plus more testing going into the research into their plan to launch satellites off their SOAR Space Shuttle which would one day be launched horizontally off the S3 Zero Gravity airliner.
“We have continued our work in Europe to develop the rockets and get the rockets tested. We’ve done the wind tunnel testing that has been completed now and we have the data from the different mac levels that we can compare against our computer design analysis,” said S3’s Robert Feierbach during Space Week in North Bay.
The company's Facebook page has not been updated since December 1, 2015.
Former Nipissing-Timiskaming MP and former Space Caucus Chair Jay Aspin, who played a key role in the project, declined to comment on the status of the S3 project.
