Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is planning its first human spaceflight of 2026 from West Texas.
Six people have been announced as the next group of passengers who will make a short trip to the edge of space on the company’s New Shepard suborbital rocket, which launches from Blue Origin’s facility north of Van Horn, Texas.
The upcoming mission will be Blue Origin’s first spaceflight with humans aboard in about a month, when six others rode Dec. 20 on New Shepard about 60 miles high. The brief flights beyond Earth’s atmosphere have become a coveted – and, reportedly, expensive – experience for space tourists with big names and deep pockets.
Here’s everything to know about Blue Origin’s next New Shepard mission, known as NS-38 – the vehicle’s 17th human spaceflight and 38th overall.
When is the next Blue Origin rocket launch in Texas?
Blue Origin is working toward a Thursday, Jan. 22, launch of its New Shepard rocket, with the spacecraft targeted to get off the ground at 8:30 a.m. CT, the company announced.
Where are Blue Origin launches?
Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launches take place from the company’s private ranch facility known as Launch Site One in Texas, located more than 140 miles east of El Paso near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Who is the crew of the next Blue Origin mission?
When the New Shepard gets off the ground again, the six people selected to board it will join 86 others who have flown on the spacecraft across 16 previous human spaceflights, including six repeat passengers.
Here’s a look at the passengers selected for a mission known as NS-38:
Does Jeff Bezos own Blue Origin?
Billionaire Jeff Bezos, best known for founding Amazon, founded the private space technology company Blue Origin in 2000. Headquartered in Washington state, Blue Origin conducts tests and launches of its small New Shepard spacecraft from West Texas.
Bezos even boarded Blue Origin’s New Shepard for its maiden crewed voyage in July 2021, which came after the spacecraft flew on 15 flight tests beginning in 2012.
What is New Glenn?
The smaller, suborbital New Shepard vehicle is not to be confused with Blue Origin’s towering orbital New Glenn rocket that has now launched twice from Florida. The 322-foot spacecraft, one of the largest active rockets in the world, last got off the ground Nov. 13 on a mission to propel twin NASA ESCAPADE satellites on a voyage to Mars.
While New Shepard is designed for quick trips to space, New Glenn is indicative of Blue Origin’s aim to compete with billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX – whose fleet of Falcon 9 rockets dominates the commercial space industry.
What happens during a New Shepard rocket launch?
Each spaceflight on a New Shepard vehicle lasts about 11 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown.
Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, the 60-foot-tall New Shepard rocket is topped with the gum drop-shaped crew capsule. The spacecraft operates completely autonomously, meaning no pilots are aboard.
During its ascent, the spacecraft reaches supersonic speeds surpassing 2,000 mph before the rocket booster separates from the crew capsule. At that point, the capsule becomes weightless as the spacecraft continues toward its highest point on its brief voyage above the Kármán Line – the 62-mile-high internationally recognized boundary of space.
Passengers will at this time experience a few minutes of microgravity after they unstrap themselves from their seats to gaze out the capsule’s large windows and take in a stunning view of Earth.
Meanwhile, the rocket booster heads back to the ground while firing its engines and using its fins to slow and control its descent to land vertical about two miles from the launchpad.
The capsule itself eventually begins what Blue Origin refers to as a “stable freefall” – plummeting back to Earth as three massive parachutes deploy and the capsule makes a soft landing in the desert, sending up plumes of dust.
How much does it cost to ride Blue Origin?
If you have dreams of blasting off to orbit on a Blue Origin spacecraft, you likely need to either have very deep pockets or a name that’s recognizable enough to get you invited as an honored guest.
Though Blue Origin does not publicly list prices on its website, a form to reserve a seat requires customers to agree to a $150,000 deposit.
And if the price of the first ticket sold for a Blue Origin spaceflight in 2021 is any indicator, seats likely cost millions of dollars. The $28 million ticket price was the winning bid in an auction that included 7,600 people registered to bid from 159 countries.
However, a select few passengers over the years have had their seats aboard New Shepard paid through grants and other funding methods from large institutions.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin announces date for next human rocket launch
Reporting by Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY NETWORK / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
