Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space venture, successfully launched its fifth tourist flight to space on Saturday in San Francisco.
In a typical 11-minute flight, six people were carried to space above the Karman line, an internationally recognized space boundary that lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface.
The flight took off at 9.25 a.m. EDT from Launch Site One, the company’s West Texas facility.
New Shepard is made up of two reusable components: a rocket and a capsule. The booster, like the first stages of SpaceX Falcon 9 orbital rockets, comes down shortly before the capsule, making powered vertical landings.
The flight was Blue Origin and New Shepard’s 21st overall. Following NS-20, which launched and landed on March 31, this was the company’s second crewed flight of the year.
It was originally scheduled to take off on May 20 but was postponed due to vehicle issues that the company did not reveal.
Investor and NS-19 Astronaut Evan Dick, electrical engineer, and former NASA test lead Katya Echazarreta, business jet pilot and Action Aviation Chairman Hamish Harding, civil production engineer Victor Correa Hespanha, adventurer and Dream Variation Ventures co-founder Jaison Robinson, and explorer and co-founder of private equity firm Insight Equity Victor Vescovo, Commander, USN are among the crew members (retd).
Hespanha was the second Brazilian to fly into space, and Echazarreta was the first Mexican-born woman and the youngest American woman to do so.
In March, the company took six people on its fourth human flight to the edge of space.
