Tenth Human Space Flight And 30th For New Shepard Program

Blue Origin successfully completed the tenth human space mission in its New Shepard launch program. The astronaut crew consisted of Lane Bess, Jesús Calleja, Elaine Chia Hyde, Dr. Richard Scott, Tushar Shah, and an undisclosed sixth crew member. With this crew, New Shepard has flown 52 people into space, with several who have flown twice.

The mission lifted off from the company’s West Texas site this morning at 10:50 am EST / 1550 GMT / 9:50 am local time. The New Shepard booster touched back down about seven minutes after launch and the crew capsule returned to the ground three minutes later.

All three of the capsule’s parachutes deployed during this descent, but during the previous mission, an uncrewed research flight earlier this month, one of the capsule parachutes failed to deploy.

All six astronauts were paying customers, and the company did not disclose the sixth crew member because he wished to remain anonymous. However, it’ easy to see that it is a man from the photos, and the mission patch reveals that his last name is Wilson.

New Shepard flights are suborbital and last a total of about 10 minutes. Passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness during highest altitude moments of the flight and are treated to a great view of Earth against the blackness of space. It is unknown how much a New Shepard tickets costs, but a competitor, Virgin Galactic, charges $600,000 per seat.

FMI:  www.blueorigin.com/