After being grounded for nearly two years due to engine failure, Amazon founder and billionaire Bezos's Blue Origin company has restarted its manned space travel service. On Sunday local time, Blue Origin used a rocket to send 6 passengers to an altitude of 100km, briefly staying there before returning to the ground.
The launch was delayed by an hour and finally took off around 9:35 am local time on Sunday from Blue Origin's launch site in West Texas. The spacecraft surpassed the internationally recognized space altitude of 100km. Subsequently, the rocket and capsule returned to Earth. The capsule successfully landed using parachutes about 15 minutes after launch.
Blue Origin has not disclosed the price of its space travel. According to a company called MoonDao, two seats ordered in 2022 cost $2.5 million, with each seat priced at $1.25 million, valuing the journey at approximately $8.3 million per minute on average.
This is the first manned space tourism mission using the New Shepard rocket by Blue Origin since August 2022. In September 2022, the New Shepard rocket experienced an engine failure during an unmanned test mission. The company then spent almost a year investigating the cause of the failure and making design corrections. In December last year, the New Shepard rocket successfully flew again.
So far, Blue Origin has conducted 7 manned space tourism missions on the New Shepard rocket, with Hollywood stars William Shatner, Michael Strahan, and Bezos himself participating. The company stated during the live broadcast at the launch site that the New Shepard rocket has now taken 37 people to the internationally recognized space altitude.
Blue Origin is seen as a major competitor to Musk's rocket company SpaceX in the future. Later this year, Blue Origin plans to launch the New Glenn rocket, which can transport cargo and has greater thrust. Within this decade, Blue Origin may have the opportunity to carry out manned lunar missions for NASA

AMZN

After engine malfunction repair, Blue Origin successfully resumed its space tourism route

After nearly two years, Bezos' Blue Origin commercial space project has restarted, sending six tourists into space