Blue origin now has five manned space flights On June 4, local time, the company of jeffbezos sent six people into suborbital space to complete its fifth manned space mission. In addition, it has made several milestone achievements in this process The operation began at 9:25 a.m. EDT, when the blue origin new Shepard aircraft lifted off from the No. 1 launch site.
More than 10 minutes later, when the space capsule and its six passengers landed under the parachute, the mission ended. When it landed, it raised a wisp of desert dust. During the flight, the crew reached an altitude of 347538 feet (106 kilometers) above the ground.
New Shepard consists of a rocket and a space capsule, both of which can be reused. The booster will land shortly before the capsule lands and make a powered vertical landing - just like the first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 orbital rocket.
This flight is the 21st flight of blue origin and new Shepard, which explains the name of the mission: NS-21. It is reported that this is the second manned flight of the company this year, after the ns-20 was launched and landed on March 31.
The other three manned new Shepard flights took place in July, October and December last year. Evan Dick, an engineer and investor, was one of the crew on the flight called the ns-19 in December. He now takes flight NS-21 again, becoming the first passenger to take new Shepard again in history.
The crew from the ns-20 left a message to the capsule communicator before the flight and let it read to the crew. In addition, Charlie duck, an Apollo astronaut who flew in the Apollo 16 mission 50 years ago and a space capsule communicator in the Apollo 11 mission, sat in the mission control center before flying to wish the NS-21 crew success.
In addition, he added: "I know you will have an exciting adventure, just as I did 50 years ago. Have a nice trip and I look forward to seeing you when you return. I wish you all the best."
Several other NS-21 firsts were provided by crew member Katya echazarreta, a 26 year old science communicator who became the first Mexican born woman ever to reach space and the youngest American woman.
Echazarreta's seat is sponsored by the non-profit organization space for humanity, which aims to expand our human access to space. She was the first "citizen astronaut" of space for humanity to reach the last frontier.
The other four passengers on the NS-21 were civil production engineer Victor Correa hespanha, who became the second Brazilian to reach space; Victor Correa hespanha, who was the finalist of the 2009 TV program "survivor: Samoa", later co founded a company called "dream variations ventures"; Victor veccovo, a successful explorer, co founded the private equity investment company insight equity; Hamish Harding, chairman of action aviation, a business aircraft brokerage company, is also an explorer and adventurer, with many aviation world records.
Like echazarreta, Correa hespanha flies with other people's money. His seat is sponsored by crypto space agency. The other four passengers on the NS-21 paid out of their own pockets, but they did not know the amount they had to pay. Blue origin did not disclose their fares.
The company's main competitor in the sub orbital space tourism industry, richardbranson's Virgin Galactic, currently charges $450000 for the seats of its VSS unity space plane. So far, VSS unity has flown to space four times, but it has not yet carried paying customers. Virgin Galactic started its comprehensive commercial passenger transport business with this aircraft in early 2023.
The NS-21 was supposed to be launched on May 20, but blue origin delayed the launch to investigate possible problems with a backup system in new Shepard.