Kent-based Blue Origin completed its eighth human spaceflight and the 26th flight for the New Shepard program on Thursday, Aug. 29.
The astronaut crew were Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen and Ephraim Rabin. New Shepard has now flown 43 people into space since its first flight in 2021.
Kitchen, 21, made history as the youngest woman ever to cross the Kármán line, which is the internationally recognized boundary of space. Ferl became the first NASA-funded researcher to conduct an experiment as part of a commercial suborbital space crew.
The official launch time from the company’s West Texas site was 8:07 a.m. CDT and the capsule landed at 8:17 a.m., with a mission elapsed time of 10 minutes, 8 seconds, according to Blue Origin. The maximum ascent velocity was 2,238 mph to travel about 62 miles into space.
Blue Origin charges people to be part of the crew. The company does not reveal its prices. Some crew members are sponsored by others.
Blue Origin opened in 2000 in Kent. The company is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
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