Blue Origin’s rocket successfully transported passengers to the edge of space for the first time after nearly two years of inactivity due to a failed unmanned test flight.
The New Shepard rocket and its passenger capsule launched at 9:36 PM on May 19 according to Hanoi time, from Blue Origin’s facility located on a private ranch in West Texas, as reported by CNN. The NS-25 mission, which is Blue Origin’s seventh crewed flight to date, carried six passengers including venture capitalist Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, founder of the French beer company Brasserie Mont-Blanc, software engineer and entrepreneur Kenneth L. Hess, retired accountant Carol Schaller, pilot Gopi Thotakura, and Ed Dwight, a retired U.S. Air Force officer who was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to become the first African American astronaut candidate.
The New Shepard rocket carrying 6 passengers to the edge of space. (Image: Blue Origin).
Despite completing training at the U.S. Air Force’s aerospace research pilot school and being nominated by the Air Force, Dwight ultimately did not become a NASA astronaut. During Blue Origin’s flight, he reached the edge of space at the age of 90, becoming the oldest person to travel to that altitude, according to a company spokesperson.
The rocket’s booster landed safely two minutes before the passenger capsule. Throughout the mission, the crew traveled at speeds three times faster than the speed of sound, exceeding 3,218 km/h. The rocket carried the passenger capsule beyond the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km above the Earth’s surface, the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space. Passengers experienced several minutes of weightlessness and had the opportunity to view Earth through the cabin windows.
On September 12, 2022, the New Shepard rocket and spacecraft carrying a series of scientific instruments encountered a mishap. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency responsible for licensing commercial rocket launches and ensuring public safety, conducted an investigation into the incident. The investigation revealed that a fuel line malfunctioned due to exposure to higher temperatures than anticipated. To address the issue, Blue Origin modified the combustion chamber, where fuel mixes with an oxidizer in the engine, and adjusted operational parameters, which the company uses to model safe flight.
These changes, along with a successful unmanned scientific mission in December 2023, allowed the company to restart flights to the edge of space. Prior to the incident in September 2022, the New Shepard rocket had completed 22 consecutive successful missions, including six crewed flights.
