Six astronauts took a brief trip to suborbital space on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight in two years.
While the previous mission, in 2022, went well, the company did an uncrewed research flight a month later which wasn’t so successful.
The unmanned rocket had an engine nozzle malfunction which caused the New Shepard capsule to abort and blast away from the rocket. It did parachute to a safe landing, but this hiccup meant the New Shepard had to be grounded while Blue Origin investigated and could fix the problem.
Blue Origin is the space tourism and exploration firm created by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. The New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle designed to take tourists to and from space.
A couple of years on the seventh human spaceflight by Blue Origin has been completed. In total, New Shephard has flown 37 people into space.
On board, the NS-25 mission were Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller, Gopi Thotakura, and former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight.
Ed Dwight, 90, was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as the nation’s first Black astronaut candidate but he never had the opportunity to fly.
Blue Origin Press Release
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