The first commercial flight of the New Shepard launcher, developed by Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin, is scheduled for this Tuesday, July 20, 2021, marking the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
A week ago, Sir Richard Branson and his crew successfully took off aboard the VSS Unity, marking the company's first official (non-testing) manned flight. Galactic. During this flight, the team floated in the cabin of the craft for four minutes at an altitude of around 85 km before returning to Earth. Now all eyes in the industry and enthusiasts are on Blue Origin.
The launch of the first crewed flight of the New Shepard, the company's reusable launcher, will be broadcast this Tuesday, July 20 from 1:30 p.m. (French time) on BlueOrigin.com. take-off is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. . Note that this schedule could change depending on the weather or possible technical problems.
During this flight, the 16th of the New Shepard rocket, passengers will soar into space at an altitude of more than one hundred kilometers, beyond the line known as Kármán. They will remain weightless for about ten minutes, after which the capsule will descend to Earth by deploying its parachute. In the meantime, the rocket will also return to its launch site in West Texas.
The crew will consist of four people. Jeff Bezos himself, boss of Blue Origin, will be there, accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos .
The third passenger is none other than Wally Funk , 82, the first female inspector of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the youngest graduate of the Women in Space program of the 1960s. As a reminder, this program had at the time subjected several female pilots to the same training and same tests as the male astronauts of the Project Mercury program, but none of them had had the chance to go into space. By the way, Wally Funk will become the oldest person to go into space , beating astronaut John Glenn's record set in 1998 aboard the space shuttle Discovery (77 years old at the time).
Finally, the fourth passenger will be Oliver Daemen , 18 years old. This Dutch student is the son of hedge fund manager Joes Daemen. The Daemen were originally finalists in the auction for the first Blue Origin paid ticket. The anonymous winner, who had paid no less than 28 million dollars for a ticket to space, withdrew on July 15 for professional reasons.
Unlike Wally Funk, Oliver Daemen will become the youngest person to go into space , beating the record of Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov, placed in orbit around the Earth (Vostok 2, in 1961) at the age of 25.
