Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched its New Shepard rocket for the sixth time this year, a mission that marked the first time the company launched six passengers at once, CNBC reported.
Called NS-19, this New Shepard mission carried a crew of two guests and four customers: astronaut Alan Shepard’s daughter Laura Shepard Churchley, US television host and NFL star Michael Strahan, space industry executive Dylan Taylor, investor Evan Dick, venture capitalist Lane Bess, and his son Cameron Bess.
The rocket launched from Blue Origin’s private facility in West Texas, and reached above 100,000 kilometers before returning to Earth safely a few minutes later. From start to finish, the launch lasted about 11 minutes. The crew experienced about three minutes of weightlessness.
New Shepard’s capsule accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound to pass beyond the 80-kilometer boundary the US uses to mark the edge of space. The capsule was flown autonomously, with no human pilot, and returned under a set of parachutes to land in the Texas desert.
The New Shepard rocket booster is reusable, and returned and landed on a concrete pad near the launch site for a fifth time.
















