By MATTHEW PHELAN SENIOR SCIENCE REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
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Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is launching six tourists aboard its $2.5 billion New Shepard rocket Friday, taking the crew more than 60 miles above Earth’s surface.
Named NS-28 — no-nonsense shorthand for the 28th outing for the firm’s reusable, suborbital rocket — is preparing to blast off from Blue Origin’s West Texas spaceport.
The launch window opens at 9:30amCT (10:30am ET), but the livestream kicked off 30 minutes before to show the six crew members gear up and strap into the rocket, and DailyMail.com is covering the action live.
Blue Origin is also hosting a livestream on its website.
The private space company said that NS-28 will be up in the air for roughly 10 minutes, before executing a soft parachute landing of its manned New Shepard crew capsule back down on Texas soil.
Blast off!
NS-28 has wiggled its fins and has launched!
‘New Shepard has cleared the tower and is heading into space,’ a Blue Origins crew member announced, as the spacecraft approached ‘max Q’ the most intense phase where these space tourists will experian 3 G’s of force as they climb above Earth.
Clear skies overhead as NS-28 prepares for launch
Not a cloud is visible on today’s livestream as Blue Origin prepares for blast off.
And the view is only likely to get better as the craft ascends, coasting through Earth’s stratosphere on its way past the official legal boundary of space, the Kármán line.
‘This flight today might give you the most beautiful perspective of our planet,’ a Blue Origin spokeperson boasted on company’s feed.
Captain Kirk’s astronaut coach has exited the spacecraft
Blue Origin’s new and returing tourists have just been cozily secured in the New Shepard’s capsule.
Helping seal them in and take care of the final checklist items, Blue Origin’s Sarah Knights can be seen on the live cam (seen below at left).
Knights served as chief astronaut trainer for Star Trek’s Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, on his own Blue Origin flight to space on October 13, 2021.
Blue Origin’s latest crew of tourists pose onboard the New Shepard
Today’s space cowboys are suited up and ready for their flight.
From left to right: Marc Hagle, Austin Litteral, Emily Calandrelli, J.D. Russell, Henry Wolfond and Sharon Hagle.
Breaking:Who will be going up into space on Blue Origin’s NS-28 today?
Blue Origin’s six-person crew for this 28th flight includes a best-selling author and MIT-trained engineer known to fans of her Netflix and YouTube shows as Emily ‘The Space Gal,’ Emily Calandrelli.
Also going into space: married couple Marc and Sharon Hagle of Winter Park, Florida, paying for their second joyride out of Earth’s atmosphere with Blue Origin; alongside aviator and CEO, Hank Wolfond; another executive, JD Russell; and contest winner Austin Litteral, a financial services professional and father of two.
Calandrelli, who hosted Netflix’s “Emily’s Wonder Lab,” is flying as part of the nonprofit organization Space For Humanity’s Citizen Astronaut Program (CAP) Ambassador for this flight.
Litteral’s seat was sponsored livestream shopping platform by Whatnot.
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Blue Origin launch live: Meet the tourists paying to go to space on Jeff Bezos’ $2.5bn rocket
