If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin will launch its eighth crewed spaceflight this week.
Jeff Bezos’ company is scheduled to launch its latest suborbital space tourism mission, NS-26, on Thursday (August 29). The reusable New Shepard rocket-capsule combo will be launched by Blue Origin’s West Texas site, 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT, 8 a.m. local Texas time).
You can watch it live: Blue Origin will be livestreaming the launch starting at 8:20 a.m. EDT (12:20 a.m. GMT).
The six people aboard NS-26 are philanthropist and entrepreneur Nikolina Elrich, university professor Rob Fahl, businessman Eugene Glynn, cardiologist Aiman ​​Jahangir, university student Carsen Kitchen, and entrepreneur Ephraim Rabin.
kitchen, 21 years old The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill senior is on track to set a record on NS-26, becoming the youngest woman to cross the 62-mile (100-kilometer) Kármán Line, which many consider to be the boundary where the universe began, according to Blue Origin.
But NASA and the US military allow astronauts to fly above 50 miles (80 kilometers) in altitude. The youngest woman to reach that altitude is 18-year-old Anastasia Meyers, who will do so on a Virgin Galactic suborbital flight in August 2023.
New Shepard’s flight will take 10 to 12 minutes from launch to when the crew capsule parachutes down. Blue Origin has not disclosed prices for seats on its suborbital aircraft.
The company launched its first crewed mission on July 20, 2021, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The New Shepard flight carried Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Damen.
NS-26 will be New Shepard’s 26th flight (hence the name) and the spacecraft’s eighth manned mission. It will also be the spacecraft’s second manned mission, following NS-25 in May of this year.
