Washington. Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft carried six new tourists into space on Saturday in a 10-minute flight that marked the fifth successful manned mission for Jeff Bezos’ company.
The takeoff occurred at 08:26 local time (13:26 GMT), from West Texas.
After a ten-minute flight, the capsule carrying the six passengers touched down gently on a vast, barren plain bathed in sunlight.
The flight included the first Mexican woman. Katya Echazarreta, born in Guadalajara, came to the United States when she was seven years old. Now 26, she has also become the youngest American to go into space.
This engineer was sponsored by the “Space for Humanity” program, which aims to democratize access to space, and was selected from among 7,000 applicants.
Among the space tourists were also the second Brazilian to travel to space, Victor Correa Hespanha, as well as businessmen Hamish Harding, Jaison Robinson, Victor Vescovo and Evan Dick.
The latter had already participated in the third manned flight of New Shepard, last December.
Ticket prices are unknown.
The capsule and its passengers were propelled by a launcher, which was detached once its mission was completed and returned to land on a runway, so that it could be used again.
The capsule continued its trajectory until it passed the Karman line, at a height of 100 kilometers, which marks the border of space according to an international convention.
Passengers were able to experience weightlessness for a few moments and see the curvature of the Earth through large portholes.
The capsule then began a free fall to return to Earth, slowed down by three huge parachutes before gently touching the ground.
The flight was originally scheduled for May 20, but was postponed “out of an abundance of caution” after an anomaly was detected in the rocket. The company did not provide further details on this issue.
Jeff Bezos himself, the main shareholder of Blue Origin, participated in the first manned flight of New Shepard in July 2021.
Since then, the ship has also carried the actor who played the series’ iconic Captain Kirk. star trekWilliam Shatner, and Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of the first American to go into space.
Blue Origin’s main competitor for this type of suborbital flight is Virgin Galactic, but since last July and the flight in which its founder, the British Richard Branson, participated, this ship has remained on the ground for modifications.
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