Blue Origin rockets 6 astrotourists on sub-orbital flight to space

Blue Origin launched six astrotourists to the borderline of abstraction and backmost Sunday, a 10-minute thrust marking the Jeff Bezos-owned company's 13th rider formation retired of the discernible atmosphere.

The New Shepard capsule's stubby single-stage booster roared to beingness conscionable aft 9:38 a.m. EDT, throttled up to afloat thrust and smoothly climbed distant from Blue Origin's motorboat tract adjacent Van Horn, Texas.

A Blue Origin New Shepard rocket carrying six abstraction tourists blasts disconnected from the company's West Texas formation facility, concisely boosting the passengers retired of the discernible ambiance connected an up-and-down sub-orbital abstraction flight. Blue Origin

Liftoff came 8 days aboriginal than primitively planned owed to precocious winds successful the West Texas desert, but the upwind met Blue Origin's information requirements connected Sunday.

The hydrogen-fueled BE-3 motor powering the New Shepard fired for astir two-and-a-half minutes, accelerating the spacecraft to conscionable nether 3 times the velocity of sound. The capsule past separated from the booster and continued coasting upward on its up-and-down trajectory.

At that point, the passengers – Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno Jr., Jim Sitkin and Owolabi Salis, the archetypal Nigerian to alert successful abstraction – began enjoying astir 3 minutes of weightlessness.

The New Shepard formation profile. Blue Origin

Free to unstrap and interval astir the cabin, the passengers were capable to instrumentality successful the presumption done the largest windows successful immoderate operational spacecraft arsenic the vessel climbed to an altitude of conscionable supra 65 miles. That's astir 3 miles higher than the internationally recognized bound betwixt the discernible ambiance and space.

The capsule past began falling backmost to Earth and the passengers returned to their seats for the descent to touchdown. The reusable booster, meanwhile, made its ain instrumentality to the motorboat site, dropping process archetypal to a rocket-powered touchdown.

The New Shepard capsule landed precise adjacent to its booster's landing pad, but Blue Origin said it was wrong information margins. Blue Origin

Floating nether 3 red-and-blue parachutes, the New Shepard capsule touched down a stone's propulsion from the booster's factual landing pad, person than immoderate erstwhile landing. Blue Origin said that it was the effect of "low winds ... and wrong the information margins of our predicted models."

Touchdown closed retired a 10-minute formation to the borderline of abstraction and back. It was Blue Origin's 13th sub-orbital rider flight. Blue Origin

Blue Origin has present launched 13 rider flights since the sub-orbital spacecraft carried Amazon and Blue Origin laminitis Bezos and 3 others aloft successful July 2021. The institution has present launched 74 passengers, including Bezos' woman Lauren Sánchez, and 4 who person flown twice.

Blue Origin and its passengers bash not uncover however overmuch it costs to alert aboard a New Shepard, but it's thought to beryllium much than $500,000 per seat.

The institution has had the sub-orbital rider marketplace to itself since June 2024, erstwhile rival Virgin Galactic, founded by entrepreneur Richard Branson, retired its archetypal rocketplane to absorption connected gathering 2 upgraded Delta-class spacecraft. Virgin is expected to resume flights adjacent year.

• Elon Musk
• Jeff Bezos
• Blue Origin
• Space
• NASA