Blue Origin NS-25
2024 private crewed sub-orbital spaceflight
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Blue Origin NS-25 was a sub-orbital spaceflight mission, operated by Blue Origin, which was launched on May 19, 2024, using the New Shepard rocket.[2][3]
| Mission type | Sub-orbital human spaceflight |
|---|---|
| Mission duration | 9 minutes, 53 seconds |
| Apogee | 107 km (66 mi) |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | RSS First Step |
| Manufacturer | Blue Origin |
| Crew | |
| Crew size | 6 |
| Members |
|
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | May 19, 2024, 9:35:09 am CDT (14:35:09 UTC)[1] |
| Rocket | New Shepard (NS4) |
| Launch site | Corn Ranch, LS-1 |
| Contractor | Blue Origin |
| End of mission | |
| Landing date | May 19, 2024, 9:45:02 am CDT (14:45:02 UTC)[1] |
| Landing site | Corn Ranch |
Blue Origin NS-25 mission patch | |
NS-25 was the first New Shepard flight to carry humans since NS-22 in August 2022. The New Shepard fleet was grounded following a September 2022 engine failure on a cargo mission. The vehicle resumed flight in December 2023.[4]
NS-25 carried six passengers to a maximum altitude of 107 km (66 mi).[1] At T+03:12, the passengers experienced weightlessness, and at T+03:31, the capsule passed the Kármán line.[5] The booster landed seven minutes after launch, while the capsule, deploying only two of its three parachutes, touched down ten minutes after liftoff. Launch commentators assured that the capsule is designed to land safely with only two parachutes.[6][7]
Passengers
| Position | Passenger | |
|---|---|---|
| Tourist |  Mason AngelFirst spaceflight | |
| Tourist |  Sylvain ChironFirst spaceflight | |
| Tourist | Ed Dwight First spaceflight | |
| Tourist | Kenneth Hess First spaceflight | |
| Tourist | Carol Schaller First spaceflight | |
| Tourist |  Gopichand ThotakuraFirst spaceflight | |
Ed Dwight is often cited as the first African-American astronaut candidate. He made it to the second round of a 1961 Air Force program from which NASA selected astronauts, but was not selected. When he eventually flew as a space tourist on the Blue Origin suborbital flight at age 90 years, 253 days, he became the oldest person to reach space.[8][9]