Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, plans to launch its first human crew to the edge of space this Sunday after almost two years of pause in this type of operations after a failed unmanned flight in 2022. The company plans that six tourists travel aboard a capsule attached to the New Shepard rocket, scheduled to take off at 9:30 a.m. ET.
The rocket will leave the company’s launch facility in Van Horn, Texas. The reusable device is expected to separate from the capsule and return to earth, while the crew capsule will ascend beyond the limits of Earth’s atmosphere.
The New Shepard crew includes 90-year-old Ed Dwight, the first black astronaut candidate who was chosen by former US President John Kennedy in 1961 to train as an astronaut but has never actually flown in space. All of the passengers, including a venture capitalist and a pilot, are paying customers of Blue Origin’s space tourism business, although Dwight’s seat was sponsored by a private, nonprofit space-focused foundation. The aerospace transportation company has not disclosed how much it charges customers.
The crew is scheduled to unbuckle their seat belts and float around the gumdrop-shaped capsule for a few minutes before the capsule descends to earth by parachute. If the operation is successfully completed, the number of private astronauts who have traveled with Blue Origin will rise to 37. The NS-25 mission, the company’s seventh manned flight, can be followed live through its website.
The interruption of launches of New Shepard, Blue Origin’s only active rocket, occurred after a mid-flight failure was detected in September 2022 during an unmanned research mission. A structural failure in the rocket motor nozzle, the company concluded, forced the mission to be aborted.
The US Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees launch site safety and commercial rocket accidents, reviewed Blue Origin’s investigation into the failure and required the company to take 21 corrective actions, including a redesign of the engine and “organizational changes”.
New Shepard flew again in December 2023 with an uncrewed mission, carrying 33 science and research payloads to the edge of space.
Resumpting routine New Shepard missions was a top priority for Blue Origin’s new CEO, Dave Limp, brought over from Amazon’s devices unit late last year by Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of both companies.
