Blue Origin has announced that it will launch its eighth manned space flight on August 29. Jeff Bezos’ reusable New Shepard rocket capsule will carry six crew members into space, and everyone will be able to watch the entire process from the comfort of their own home.
The space mission NS-26 will be the 26th.th Launch into space and its 8th manned flight. According to Blue Origin, about 99% of New Shepard’s dry mass will be reused, including the capsule, booster and engine.
The entire journey, from takeoff to parachute landing, takes 10 to 12 minutes. During this time, passengers travel at three times the speed of sound. After crossing the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space 100 km above the Earth, travelers are unstrapped and can observe the Earth weightlessly from the windows that make up one third of the capsule’s surface.
The launch of NS-26 from Blue Origin’s West Texas site is scheduled for Thursday at 9:00 a.m. EDT (2:00 p.m. Brussels time and 8:00 a.m. Texas time). A live stream documenting the launch will be available on Blue Origin’s website 40 minutes before liftoff.
Just like New Shepard’s previous missions, the crew will be a mix of people, including both experienced astronauts and space novices. NS-26’s six crew members are Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen, and Ephraim Rabin. Two of them stand out in particular: Rob Ferl, as he will be the first NASA-funded researcher to conduct an experiment as part of a commercial suborbital space crew, and Karsen Kitchen, a senior student who will make history as the youngest woman to cross the Kármán Line.
Blue Origin, a company founded by Jeff Bezos, wants to make space accessible to millions of people in the future, both for living and working. Although the price for a seat on board the New Shepard has not yet been made public, it can be booked on request. A two-day on-site astronaut training course teaches participants “everything they need to know for a safe space flight.”
