Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ commercial spaceflight company, completed its eighth manned flight on Thursday, carrying six passengers, including the youngest woman ever to fly into space.
It was the second launch of a New Shephard rocket since the company's fleet was grounded following an emergency landing in 2022. There were no people on board at the time.
The rocket took off on Thursday at 8 a.m. local time (3 p.m. in Poland) from West Texas. The capsule separated from the rocket a moment later, rising to an altitude of 104 kilometers, Blue Origin reported on the X portal. The crew members experienced several minutes of weightlessness, after which the capsule safely, on several parachutes, fell back to the Earth's surface in the desert. The rocket's landing also took place without complications.
The Youngest Woman in Space
On board was Karsen Kitchen, who became the youngest woman to ever cross the Karman Line, the conventional boundary of space. She is a student at the University of North Carolina and plans to pursue a career in the space industry after graduation. This year, she founded Orbitelle, an initiative aimed at encouraging women to pursue careers in the space industry.
IN cosmos Also flying were: philanthropist and entrepreneur Nicolina Elrick, who operates in the fashion and real estate industries, biologist Rob Ferl from the University of Florida, Eugene Grin, who was born in Ukraine and then emigrated to the United States where he began his career in real estate and finance, cardiologist and professor of radiology Eiman Jahangir at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, USA, and American-Israeli businessman, philanthropist and entrepreneur Efraim Rabin.
Blue Origin is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, founder of internet giant Amazon. He flew the inaugural manned flight to the edge of space in July 2021.
blueorigin.com, tvnmeteo.pl
Main image source: ENEX/Blue Origin