The private aerospace company Blue Origin has scheduled its eighth tourist suborbital launch for August 29, writes Space.com. It will be carried out from the company’s launch pad in West Texas at 8:00 local time (16:00 Moscow time).
Image Source: Blue Origin
You can follow the launch of the NS-26 mission during a live broadcast, which will begin at 15:20 Moscow time. Six therists are set to travel to the edge of outer space aboard the New Shepard spacecraft: entrepreneur and philanthropist Nicolina Elrick, university professor Rob Ferl, businessman Eugene Grin, cardiologist Eiman Jahangir, student College Karsen Kitchen, as well as entrepreneur Ephraim Rabin.
Carsen Kitchen is a 21-year-old student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She will become the youngest woman in Blue Origin’s history of suborbital launches to cross the 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) Karman Line, widely considered the boundary of the beginning of outer space. However, in the same aerospace agency NASA, the boundary of space is considered to be an altitude of more than 50 miles (80 km). The youngest woman to reach this height was 18-year-old Anastatia Mayers, who did it during a suborbital flight aboard Virgin Galactic in August 2023.
The entire New Shepard flight, from takeoff of the launch vehicle to a given altitude and subsequent landing of the space capsule, takes 10–12 minutes. Blue Origin does not disclose the exact cost of a seat on board the suborbital vehicle.