On Monday, the American reusable ship News, on April 14, made a successful suborbital commercial flight with a crew of six female tourists, the Blue Origin developer said. The descent capsule has successfully landed in the west of Texas, in the area of the launch site.
The crew included: American singer Katy Perry, journalist and TV presenter CBS Gail King, aerospace engineer and entrepreneur Aishe Bow, Bioastonautics Engineer Amanda Nguyen, Director Kerienn Flynn, Journalist and Pilot of the Loren Sanchess (ruler of the head of Blue Origin Jeff Bezos), who personally selected the crew.
The flight lasted about 10 minutes.
After vertical acceleration lasting 110 seconds, the descent apparatus separated from the carrier, which continued to gain height up to about 105 km by inertia, that is, just above the pocket line. In total, the capsule with space tourists stayed at the highest point of flight for about four minutes.
The pocket line is a height above sea level, which is conditionally accepted as the boundary between the atmosphere of the Earth and the Cosmos. In accordance with the definition of the International Aviation Federation, the line is located at an altitude of 100 km. In this regard, passengers can apply for the title of astronaut without committing an orbital flight, Interfax notes.
As part of the New Shepard program, 11 successful suborbital missions with the crew have already been implemented, 62 tourists visited the border between the Earth’s atmosphere and the cosmos.
The head of Blue Origin, the billionaire Jeff Bezos, who is also the founder of Amazon, personally one of the first to fly on the New Shepard ship to the suborbital flight on July 20, 2021.
The system, the development of which was started in 2006, was named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to make suborbital flight on May 5, 1961.
The cost of flight for space tourists at New Shepard is currently estimated at half a million dollars.