Bezos’ Blue Origin launches first crew to edge of space since 2022 grounding

WASHINGTON - Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin launched its first crew of people from a site in Texas to the edge of space on May 19 since its suborbital New Shepard rocket was grounded in 2022, resuming its centerpiece space tourism business.

Six people seated in a capsule atop Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket were launched from the company’s remote Van Horn, Texas launch facilities. The rocket separated from the capsule, and the crew capsule then ascended further beyond the boundary of Earth’s atmosphere to about 106km.

The gumdrop-shaped pod carrying the crew then returned to Earth, capping a brief mission that upped Blue Origin’s private astronaut headcount to 37. The booster then landed back on Earth.

The crew members are expected to unfasten their safety belts and float around the gumdrop-shaped pod for a few minutes in the weightlessness of space before the capsule descends back to land under parachutes, capping a mission that would increase Blue Origin’s private astronaut headcount to 37.

The New Shepard crew included Mr Ed Dwight, the first Black astronaut candidate who was picked by former US President John Kennedy in 1961 to train as an astronaut, but never flew to space. He is 90.

All passengers, including a venture capitalist and a pilot, are paying customers of Blue Origin’s space tourism business, though Mr Dwight’s seat was sponsored by a space-focused non-profit organisation and a private foundation. Blue Origin has not disclosed how much it charges customers.

The grounding of New Shepard, Blue Origin’s only active rocket, came after a mid-flight failure in September 2022 during an uncrewed research mission. A structural failure in the rocket’s engine nozzle, the company concluded, forced the capsule full of science experiments to abort.

The US Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees launchsite safety and commercial rocket mishaps, examined Blue Origin’s probe into the failure and required the company to take 21 corrective actions, including an engine redesign and “organizational changes”.

New Shepard returned to flight in December 2023 with an uncrewed mission, carrying 33 science and research payloads to the edge of space.

Resuming New Shepard’s routine missions was a top priority for Blue Origin’s new chief executive Dave Limp, plucked from Amazon.com’s devices unit late last year by Mr Bezos, the billionaire founder of both companies.

Mr Bezos is working to boost his space company’s competitive footing with Mr Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

While New Shepard is back to flying people, other pressing priorities remain at the company. Chief among them is debuting Blue Origin’s much larger rocket, New Glenn, a reusable heavy-lift rocket designed to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in the business of launching commercial and government satellites into Earth’s orbit and beyond.

Development of New Glenn and its BE-4 engines has been delayed for years, though Blue Origin expects a debut launch from Florida by the end of this year.

Mr Limp, who started as CEO in December, has sought to speed up the company’s production line for BE-4, which is also used by the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket. REUTERS