Blue Origin did not give details of the problem.īlue Origin is a leading player in the nascent space tourism market. NASA's Johnson Space Center calculates the sighting information several times a. The service is designed to only notify users of passes that are high enough in the sky to be easily visible over trees, buildings and other objects on the horizon. This flight had been scheduled for May 20 but was delayed because of a problem with one of the spacecraft's back-up systems. The International Space Station's trajectory passes over more than 90 percent of Earth's population. The capsule then fell back to Earth, with three giant parachutes and retro engines helping it make a gentle landing that kicked up a big cloud of dust.
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The capsule kept going up until it crossed the so-called Karman line at an altitude of about 100 km (60 miles), which by international convention is considered the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.Īt that height the crew experienced weightlessness for a few minutes and could observe Earth's curvature through big windows in New Shepard. The rocket booster part then eased down vertically, letting off a sonic boom at one point, and landed to be reused. The gumdrop-shaped capsule holding the crew detached from the rocket once the latter took them into the heavens. Ticket prices are a closely guarded secret.
The crew also included the first Brazilian to go into space, Victor Correa Hespanha, as well as businessmen Hamish Harding, Jaison Robinson, Victor Vescovo and Evan Dick.ĭick also flew on New Shepard's third crewed flight in December. Her spot was sponsored by Space for Humanity, a program which seeks to democratize access to space and selected her from among 7,000 candidates. The Guadalajara native also became the first Mexican-born woman to go into space. The flight included engineer Katya Echazarreta, who at 26 became the youngest American woman in space. The crew hooted with glee as the rocket reached space, a Blue Origin webcast showed. The white spacecraft called New Shepard lifted off with a roar from a desert spot in west Texas at 8:26 local time (1326 GMT).