Following a long delay in flights, Blue Origin is returning to crewed spaceflight missions for its New Shepard rocket, with a launch date scheduled for May 19. The missions will carry six customers to an altitude just above the Karman Line.
Blue Origin announced that its return to human spaceflight mission will take place this Sunday, May 19. The company’s New Shepard rocket is a sub-orbital, nearly fully reusable rocket launched out of the desert of West Texas.
On Sunday, the company plans to attempt the launch of NS-25, the first crewed flight of the rocket since August of 2022. A month later, on an uncrewed New Shepard flight, the rocket suffered a failure within its engine, triggering the capsule’s launch abort system.
Blue Origin spent the next year investigating and mitigating the failure before returning to flight in December of 2023, with an uncrewed research flight. Now, crew will return to the rocket for the first time since that fateful mission.
The list of NS-25 participants are as follows:
- Mason Angel
- Sylvain Chiron
- Ed Dwight
- Ken Hess
- Carol Schaller
- Gopi Thotakura
You will be able to watch the launch of Blue Origin’s first mission of 2024, on the company’s website and YouTube channel. Live coverage is set to begin at T-40 minutes.
