Blue Origin is preparing its next crewed mission this month, its first with a crew in a year and a half.
This will be the first crewed mission since and second overall launch since a nozzle failure caused the flight termination system to trigger during a launch in September 2022. The mission will launch from the company’s West Texas launch site.
The company returned to flight over a year later after taking corrective actions with a successful sub-orbital flight that hosted 33 various science payloads.
This crewed flight will feature 6 participants taking their first trips to space.
- Former U.S. Air Force Captain Ed Dwight – Dwight was originally selected by the U.S. Air Force to join NASA as an astronaut in 1963 but did not end up being selected and retired from the USAF in 1966.
- Mason Angel – Founder of Industrious Ventures, a venture capital fund.
- Sylvain Chiron – Founder of Brasserie Mont Blanc, a large craft brewery in France.
- Kenneth L. Hess – Software engineer and entrepreneur.
- Carol Schaller – Retired CPA
- Gopi Thotakura – Co-founder of Preserve Life Corp.
Ed Dwight’s seat is being sponsored by Space For Humanity, a non-profit organization that aims to expand space flight opportunities to civilians. This will be the third time they have sponsored a seat with Blue Origin, and as of this writing, the other 5 seats are paid for by the respective individuals.
The last crewed flight took place in August 2022, and all crewed flights have used the crew capsule RSS First Step, which has flown 8 times in total.
If this mission goes smoothly, this could give Blue Origin the confidence to resume a higher cadence of their sub-orbital New Shepard tourist flights as the year progresses while they also prepare for the maiden flight of New Glenn, possibly later this year or early 2025.
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