New Shepard 33 Mission Completed After Two Scrubbed Attempts

On June 29, Blue Origin’s New Shepard program logged its 33rd flight and 13th with humans on board. The six-person crew brings the program’s total to 70 self-declared ‘astronauts’, including four who have come back for seconds.

“One thing this crew shares in common is an appreciation of our planet’s beauty and the need to preserve it for future generations,” said Audrey Powers, VP, Mission and Flight Operations. “Thank you to our customers for entrusting us to provide this life-changing view. I look forward to seeing how you transform this experience into action.”

After two weather delays, the suborbital flight lifted off from Launch Site One near Van Horn, Texas, at 10:38 am for a 10-minute and 33-second journey. It carried six civilian passengers to the Kármán line, the internationally recognized boundary of space at roughly 62 miles above Earth.

The NS-33 mission added six more individuals to Blue Origin’s growing list of space tourists, bringing the total to 70 since the company’s first human flight in 2021. Among the crew were Allie Kuehner, an environmentalist and board member of Nature Is Nonpartisan, and her husband, Carl Kuehner, chairman of the real estate firm Building and Land Technology. The couple became the second married pair to fly aboard New Shepard.

Other passengers included Leland Larson, a former transportation company CEO; Freddie Rescigno Jr, president of an electrical cable business; Jim Sitkin, a California attorney; and Owolabi Salis, a financial consultant and attorney, who became the first Nigerian-born person to visit space.

Powered by its fully reusable booster, the autonomous New Shepard rocket carried the capsule to its apogee in just over three minutes. After reaching suborbital space, the capsule separated and granted passengers several minutes of weightlessness before reentry. The booster returned to land separately on a nearby pad as the crew capsule descended under parachutes and touched down safely in the desert.

FMI: www.blueorigin.com