Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launches first crew to edge of space since 2022 grounding

The 6-man crew includes Ed Dwight, 90, the first Black astronaut candidate picked in 1961 to train as an astronaut but never flew to space

All passengers, including a venture capitalist and a pilot, are paying customers and are expected float around the pod for a few minutes before returning to earth

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A screen grab of a Blue Origin broadcast shows the Mission NS-25, with the New Shepard 4 rocket and crew capsule, taking off from the Blue Origin base near Van Horn, Texas. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:13pm, 19 May 2024

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin launched its first crew of people from a site in Texas to the edge of space on Sunday since its suborbital New Shepard rocket was grounded in 2022, resuming its centrepiece space tourism business.

Six people seated in a capsule atop Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket were launched from the company’s remote Van Horn, Texas launch facilities.

The reusable rocket is expected to separate from the capsule and return to land, while the crew capsule will ascend further beyond the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere.

The New Shepard crew includes Ed Dwight, the first Black astronaut candidate who was picked by former US president John Kennedy in 1961 to train as an astronaut, but never flew to space. He is 90.

All passengers, including a venture capitalist and a pilot, are paying customers of Blue Origin’s space tourism business, though Dwight’s seat was sponsored by a space-focused non-profit and a private foundation. Blue Origin has not disclosed how much it charges customers.

Jeff Bezos is launched with three crew members aboard a New Shepard rocket on the world’s first unpiloted suborbital flight from Blue Origin’s Launch Site 1 near Van Horn, Texas in 2021. Photo: Reuters

The crew members are expected to unfasten their safety belts and float around the gumdrop-shaped pod for a few minutes in the weightlessness of space before the capsule descends back to land under parachutes, capping a mission that would increase Blue Origin’s private astronaut headcount to 37.