Russian airline owner to challenge Musk, Bezos in space

A Russian airline entrepreneur wants to join the space race, challenging Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin LLC with a plan to launch commercial rockets.

S7 Group, the owner of Russia’s S7 Airlines, agreed to buy the floating rocket platform Sea Launch from a group of investors and aims to restore its operations after a more than two-year hiatus, the family-owned company said. S7 Group co-founder Vladislav Filev described the deal as an “admission ticket” into the aerospace industry.