blue origin voyage

• Rabbit R1 AI review
• Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra is on sale
• Best college graduation gifts
• The best laptops for 2024

Blue Origin gets FAA approval for its first human spaceflight on July 20th

New shepard is set to fly with amazon founder jeff bezos aboard..

The FAA has approved Blue Origin's maiden crewed rocket voyage set for July 20th with the company's founder Jeff Bezos aboard. The flight aboard the New Shepard will take Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and three other passengers to Kármán line, just beyond the edge of space.

To get the certification, Blue Origin had to verify New Shepard's hardware and software operation during its NS-15 test flight conducted on April 14th, 2021. If all goes to plan, the New Shepard booster and capsule with astronauts aboard will blast off to an altitude beyond 100 kilometers (62 miles). The booster will eventually separate from the capsule and attempt to land Earth, while the capsule with passengers aboard will descend to the ground carried by a triple parachute system.

Rival Richard Branson beat Bezos to be the first billionaire in space aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. However, Blue Origin claimed that Virgin Galactic didn't truly go to space as it "only" went 57 miles up and didn't cross the Kármán line considered by many to be the edge of space.

In any case, neither company will be taking passengers into orbit, unlike SpaceX, which is set to do a true orbital flight with passengers aboard later this year . The prices for the different systems are also vastly different: Virgin Galactic's customers pay $250,000 for a ticket to the edge of space, Blue Origin space tourists are expected to pay around $500,000 and SpaceX clients will pay $55 million for a 10-day mission to the ISS.

However, a seat to fly with Jeff Bezos on the maiden Blue Horizon flight sold at auction for $28 million to a buyer expected to be named soon. That's a lot for a flight expected to last about 10 minutes, but it should be quite a ride.

Latest Stories

The best wireless earbuds for 2024.

It's safe to say the wireless earbuds space is pretty saturated. We've tested and reviewed dozens of models; these are our top picks.

Apple is launching new iPads May 7: Here's what to expect from the 'Let Loose' event

Apple has scheduled an event for May 7 that'll more than likely focus on new iPads. Here's what we expect the company to show off.

Spotify tests Apple's resolve with new pricing update in the EU

Spotify submitted a new update for Apple's approval that would display pricing right in the app.

Tupac’s estate threatens to sue Drake for his AI-infused Kendrick Lamar diss

Tupac Shakur’s estate isn’t pleased with Drake cloning the late hip-hop legend’s voice in a Kendrick Lamar diss track. Attorney Howard King, representing Mr. Shakur’s estate, sent a cease-and-desist letter calling Drake’s use of Shakur’s voice “a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the estate’s legal rights.”

BlizzCon 2024 is canceled

Blizzard has canceled this year's edition of BlizzCon. It plans to bring back the event in the future.

Reddit is back online after a major outage forced everyone to touch grass

Reddit is currently down. The company is working on a fix.

Formula E debuts Gen3 Evo race car: All-wheel drive unlocks 0-60 mph in 1.82 seconds

For the first time, all-wheel drive will be available on a Formula E car, which will unlock 0-60 MPH times under two seconds.

Our favorite budget webcam is 20 percent off right now

The Anker PowerConf C200 webcam is 20 percent off right now via Amazon or directly from the company. This brings the price down to $48.

Threads is getting its own Hidden Words feature

Threads is launching the Hidden Words feature for users, hiding offensive words, phrases or emojis.

FCC votes to restore net neutrality protections

The Federal Communications Commission has voted to restore net neutrality protections. Under those rules, ISPs are not allowed to throttle access to specific sites or charge streaming services for faster service.

The world’s biggest 3D printer can a make a house in under 80 hours

The University of Maine has beat its own world record by creating the largest polymer 3D printer. This new model can print up to 500 pounds each hour.

Garry’s Mod faces deluge of Nintendo-related DMCA takedown notices

Facepunch Studios has announced on Steam that it's removing 20 years' worth of Nintendo-related workshop items for its sandbox game Garry's Mod to comply with the Japanese company's demands. But fans say the takedown notices came from trolls, not from Nintendo itself.

The best gifts for teachers

Show your favorite educator that you appreciate their hard work with these tech gift ideas.

The Morning After: Testing the Rabbit R1's AI assistant skills

The biggest news stories this morning: TikTok Lite axes ‘addictive as cigarettes’ reward-to-watch feature, Joe Biden signs the bill that could ban TikTok, JetBlue’s in-flight entertainment system just got a watch party feature.

Adobe's new upscaling tech uses AI to sharpen video

Adobe has unveiled VideoGigaGAN, an experimental AI feature that can upscale video by eight times without the usual artifacts like flickering or distortion.

The best MacBook accessories for 2024

Here are the accessories we use and recommend to improve the ergonomics, connectivity and overall productivity of your MacBook.

Manhattan's DA wants to know why YouTube is pushing 'ghost gun' tutorials to kids

Manhattan's District Attorney wants to meet with YouTube's CEO to discuss why the website allows the posting of videos on how to manufacture "ghost guns" and why its algorithm is pushing them to underage viewers who watch video game content.

The best ereaders for 2024

We tested ereaders from Kobo, Amazon, Boox and more to see which one is the best overall, along with a budget pick and the best one with page-turn buttons.

Threads has 150 million monthly users

Meta’s Threads app now has more than 150 million monthly users, an increase of about 20 million new users since February

TikTok Lite axes ‘addictive as cigarettes’ reward-to-watch feature under the EU’s watchful eye

The EU has effectively vanquished a TikTok feature that Europe’s digital commissioner described as “toxic” and “addictive as cigarettes.” TikTok owner ByteDance said on Wednesday that TikTok Lite’s reward-to-watch feature would be suspended.

Jeff Bezos set to rocket to suborbital space aboard first crewed Blue Origin flight

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

The richest man in the world is counting down the minutes to his spacefaring debut. Sixteen years after he set out in earnest to commercialize space travel, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, is scheduled to take its biggest step yet in that direction, with its founder along for the ride.

Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and owner of the Washington Post, will be aboard the launch vehicle New Shepard along with three other passengers for its first crewed flight Tuesday morning. The flight was set to take off from a launch pad near Van Horn, Texas, at 6 a.m. Pacific time with a livestream starting at 4:30 a.m. There was a brief 15-minute hold in the countdown as the timelines got aligned, but it was lifted a few minutes before 6 a.m. The launch was delayed by about 11 minutes.

Aboard the New Shepard, in addition to Bezos, 57, will be Mark Bezos, the billionaire’s 53-year-old brother; aviation pioneer Wally Funk, 82; and Oliver Daemen, 18. Funk and Daemen will become the oldest and youngest individuals to travel to space.

The four will experience just an 11-minute trip to suborbital space, with the vessel’s autonomous flight systems in control of the journey.

Daemen is the first paying customer in what Blue Origin says will be the start of commercial service. Originally, a ticket was auctioned and sold for $28 million , but the ticket holder postponed their trip, citing scheduling conflicts, according to Blue Origin. The company did not release the name of the ticket holder or how much Daemen, the son of a Dutch private equity executive, paid for his spot.

Watch live as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and owner of the Washington Post, will be aboard the launch vehicle New Shepard along with three other passengers for its first crewed flight to suborbital space.

“This marks the beginning of commercial operations for New Shepard, and Oliver represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space,” Bob Smith, chief executive of Blue Origin, said in a news release Thursday .

Blue Origin’s mission follows a successful launch this month by Virgin Galactic, a rival in the suborbital space tourism race.

Virgin Galactic’s Unity spaceplane carried six people — including billionaire Richard Branson, the company’s founder — to suborbital space for a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth. The mission was intended to increase potential buyer’s confidence in the experience.

Bezos took to Instagram and congratulated Branson, adding, “Can’t wait to join the club!”

Blue Origin plans to launch tourists past the so-called Karman line 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth, which is often defined as the threshold of space, although NASA and the U.S. military set the line at 50 miles up.

Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic crew go to the edge of space and back

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson celebrated on Sunday after successfully going to suborbital space on a crewed flight.

July 11, 2021

New Shepard’s mission will follow a sequence familiar from NASA’s Apollo missions and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon launches, albeit on a smaller scale: A crew capsule sits atop the rocket booster and separates from it in flight, with the two returning to Earth independently. The system has been tested over the course of 15 missions, which includes tests of the capsule’s escape system.

“We now know it’s ready to go, and we can prove it,” Smith told reporters Sunday.

Blue Origin has not announced the price range or number of tickets available for future flights. Ariane Cornell, the company’s director of astronaut sales, said Sunday there is a robust pipeline of interested customers.

The “willingness to pay continues to be quite high,” Smith said. “Our early flights are going for a very good price.”

Bidding for a ticket to board Tuesday’s flight went on for more than a month. Proceeds from the auction went to the Club for the Future foundation, which was founded by Blue Origin and is aimed at promoting science, technology, engineering and math careers. From those proceeds, 19 nonprofit organizations were selected to receive $1 million grants.

Although a crewed launch has been a priority for Blue Origin, the company also has goals to provide satellite services and potential human space habitation.

Bezos’ company is also developing a larger rocket called New Glenn, which is designed to launch satellites. The company teamed up with Lockheed Martin, Draper and Northrop Grumman to build a lunar lander for NASA, but the contract was awarded to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The French satellite operator Eutelsat became the first customer to purchase a spot on New Glenn back in March 2017. The company plans to send satellites into space once New Glenn is fully operational.

More to Read

SpaceX Starship successfully blasts off on third test flight

March 14, 2024

Elon Musk’s SpaceX reportedly valued at $175 billion or more in tender offer

Dec. 7, 2023

Rocket launch will include sendoff of remains of some ‘Star Trek’ actors and many others

Dec. 3, 2023

Andrew Mendez is a rising senior at the University of Nevada, Reno, double majoring in journalism and Spanish literature. He joined The Times over summer 2021 as a Business reporting intern through his school’s Reynolds Journalism Institute, working from Los Angeles.

Samantha Masunaga is a business reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She’s worked at the paper since 2014.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Google parent reports another quarter of accelerating growth and its stock price soars

April 25, 2024

Stock market today: Wall Street falls on double dose of disappointing economic data, as Meta sinks

Company Town

Hollywood, accusers condemn reversal of Weinstein conviction: ‘We know what happened’

U.S. growth fell sharply to 1.6% last quarter, pressured by high interest rates

Covering the business and politics of space

Blue Origin to resume crewed New Shepard flights

• Click to share on X (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Clipboard (Opens in new window)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Blue Origin announced plans April 4 for its first crewed New Shepard flight in more than 18 months, a mission that will give an opportunity for America’s first Black astronaut candidate to finally go to space.

The company said the six-person crew of the NS-25 suborbital mission will include Ed Dwight. He was a U.S. Air Force pilot announced by the Kennedy administration in 1961 as an astronaut candidate, the first Black person to be considered. He graduated from the Air Force’s Aerospace Research Pilot School but was not selected by NASA in its next astronaut classes. He left the Air Force in 1966 and became a sculptor.

Dwight’s inclusion on NS-25 is sponsored by Space for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that sponsors flights for individuals on commercial spacecraft. “Ed is an industry legend, and his ascension above the Karman Line is long overdue,” said Dylan Taylor, founder of Space for Humanity who flew on New Shepard in 2021, on social media .

Also supporting the flight is the Jaison and Jaime Robinson Foundation; Jaison Robinson flew on the NS-21 New Shepard flight in June 2022.

Dwight is in line to become the oldest person to fly in space, as he is currently about a week older than actor William Shatner was when he became the oldest person to go to space on a New Shepard flight in October 2021. Blue Origin has not revealed a launch date for NS-25 but the announcement of the crew suggests the company plans to conduct the flight in the near future.

The other five people flying on NS-25 are Mason Angel, a venture capitalist; Sylvain Chiron, a French businessman and philanthropist; Kenneth L. Hess, a software entrepreneur; Carol Schaller, a retired accountant; and Gopi Thotakura, a pilot and founder of a wellness center.

The NS-25 mission will be the first crewed flight of New Shepard since the NS-22 mission in August 2022 . A month later, a payload-only flight of New Shepard suffered an engine problem a minute into the flight , triggering the capsule’s abort system. The capsule landed safely but the vehicle’ propulsion module was lost.

Blue Origin concluded that the thermal damage caused structural failure of the engine’s nozzle. The company resumed New Shepard flights with another payload mission in December 2023 , stating at the time that it would conduct its next crewed mission “soon.”

Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science... More by Jeff Foust

Sign up for a SpaceNews newsletter

Get top stories, military space news and more delivered to your inbox.

'Road to space': billionaire Bezos has successful suborbital jaunt

• Medium Text
• 10-minute trip was first crewed Blue Origin space flight
• World's oldest and youngest space voyagers were aboard
• Bezos says company nears $100 million in private sales

Sign up here.

Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Van Horn, Texas; Additional reporting Radhika Anilkumar; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

Technology Chevron

Alphabet, Microsoft shares jump on proof of near-term AI returns

Google and Microsoft rallied on Friday as the technology bellwethers showed that hefty investments into artificial intelligence could reap more immediate revenue returns, a sharp contrast to Meta Platforms' view that AI is a long-term bet.

Blue Origin makes 4th flight, successfully lands after 10-minute voyage

By Steve Gorman

- Blue Origin, the space tourism venture launched by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, completed its fourth flight with a crew on Thursday, landing successfully in rural west Texas after taking a half dozen passengers for a 10-minute suborbital joyride.

The New Shepard spacecraft blasted off at 8:59 a.m. CDT (1359 GMT), and the crew capsule separated from the six-story-tall rocket a short time later as it soared to an altitude of 66 miles (106 km).

The crew members experienced a few minutes of weightlessness at the very apex of their brief ride before the capsule fell back to Earth to the desert floor under a canopy of three parachutes, landing safely outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.

"What an amazing mission from Launch Site One. Congrats to all of Team Blue on executing and supporting today’s flight," Blue Origin said on Twitter.

The flight came two days after it was initially scheduled, with poor weather conditions forcing the mission to be postponed on Tuesday.

Unlike Blue Origin's first three crewed flights, which featured passenger rosters including "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, morning TV host Michael Strahan and Bezos himself, nobody on Thursday's flight was particularly famous.

"Saturday Night Live" comic Pete Davidson had been confirmed as a non-paying promotional guest on the latest flight. But he dropped out earlier this month when the planned launch was postponed from its original March 23 date to allow time for additional pre-flight tests.

Days later the company announced that Davidson, 28, the boyfriend of reality TV star Kim Kardashian, had been replaced on the latest "crew" manifest by veteran Blue Origin designer Gary Lai, architect of the New Shepard reusable launch system.

Lai flew for free. He joined five previously announced paying customers - angel investor Marty Allen, real estate veteran Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon Hagle, entrepreneur and University of North Carolina professor Jim Kitchen and George Nield, founder and president of Commercial Space Technologies.

Bezos, the billionaire founder of online retail giant Amazon, was part of Blue Origin's inaugural crewed flight to the edge of space last July. He accompanied his brother, Mark Bezos, trailblazing octogenarian female aviator Wally Funk and an 18-year-old Dutch high school graduate.

You might also like

US regulator votes to restore net neutrality rules

Alcohol sales disrupted in Sweden after reported ransomware attack

Online privacy advocates call to revive stalled legal reforms

• Share full article

Advertisement

How much does a ticket to space on New Shepard cost? Blue Origin isn’t saying.

By Joey Roulette

• Oct. 13, 2021

Blue Origin has declined to publicly state a price for a ticket to fly on New Shepard. The company is nearing $100 million in sales so far, Mr. Bezos has said. But it’s unclear how many ticket holders that includes.

“We don’t know quite yet” when Blue Origin will publicly announce a price, Mr. Bezos told reporters in July after his flight to space. “Right now we’re doing really well with private sales.”

Oliver Daemen, the Dutch teenager aboard Blue Origin’s first crewed flight in July, was occupying a seat that the company auctioned off for $28 million, a steep number that even shocked some company executives. Of that total, $19 million was donated equally to 19 space organizations.

Mr. Daemen, 18, wasn’t the winning bidder. His father, a private equity executive, was the runner-up in the auction and was next in line after the actual winner. That individual, who has not been named, plunked down $28 million before postponing their trip over a scheduling conflict, Blue Origin said at the time.

Tickets to the edge of space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo were hiked to $450,000 in August, from $250,000, when the company reopened ticket sales after a yearslong hiatus.

Flights to orbit — a much higher altitude than Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic’s trips go — are far more expensive. Three passengers to the International Space Station next year are paying $55 million each for their seats on a SpaceX rocket, bought through the company Axiom Space.

Many wealthy customers and space company executives see the steep ticket prices as early investments into the nascent space tourism industry, hoping the money they put down can help lower the cost of launching rockets.

What’s Up in Space and Astronomy

Keep track of things going on in our solar system and all around the universe..

Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other 2024 event  that’s out of this world with  our space and astronomy calendar .

Scientists may have discovered a major flaw in their understanding of dark energy, a mysterious cosmic force . That could be good news for the fate of the universe.

A new set of computer simulations, which take into account the effects of stars moving past our solar system, has effectively made it harder to predict Earth’s future and reconstruct its past.

Dante Lauretta, the planetary scientist who led the OSIRIS-REx mission to retrieve a handful of space dust , discusses his next final frontier.

A nova named T Coronae Borealis lit up the night about 80 years ago. Astronomers say it’s expected to put on another show  in the coming months.

Is Pluto a planet? And what is a planet, anyway? Test your knowledge here .

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• Backchannel
• Newsletters
• WIRED Insider
• WIRED Consulting

Steven Levy

Jeff Bezos Touches Space Aboard Blue Origin Rocket

In 1994, Jeff Bezos and his then-wife, MacKenzie, drove from New York City to Seattle so he could start a new company to sell books on the internet. Assuming a normal highway speed, they would have zipped past 65 mile markers every hour during their 2,500-mile journey. Today, funded by the billions of dollars he made from that much-expanded company, Jeff Bezos traveled the most important 65 miles in his life: straight up, to the doorstep of space. It took him a little over three minutes to achieve that altitude. He was the first passenger on New Shepard, the suborbital rocket system built by his company, Blue Origin.

Joining Bezos—and the ranks of the 580 people who have previously traveled to space—were his brother Mark, 53, a volunteer fireman and philanthropist who now runs an equity fund; Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk, an 82-year-old aviation pioneer who was denied a chance to become a Mercury astronaut because she was a woman; and Oliver Daemen, an 18-year-old student whose bid of millions won him the distinction of becoming Blue’s first paying customer. (He actually was an underbidder; the unknown person who originally won the auction with a $28 million bid postponed their fight due to “scheduling difficulties.”) The latter two are now the oldest and youngest humans to sample space travel.

Lasting only 10 minutes and 10 seconds, the flight seemed flawless, from launch to touchdown. It began with a show of confidence, the crew bubbling with enthusiasm as they prepared, and ended in a jubilant celebration of the newly minted astronauts as they reunited with their loved ones after their brief time away.

WIRED's Steven Levy is reporting daily from Van Horn, Texas, where Jeff Bezos is among the first passengers aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket system. You can read the previous installment here .

This suborbital jaunt by Bezos and his crewmates marks a long-overdue entry into the human spaceflight club for Blue Origin, which Bezos founded in 2000. (In contrast, the US crewed space program, initiated after Russia launched its Sputnik satellite in 1957, took only 12 years to get to the moon .) But deliberation was built into Blue Origin’ modus operandi: The company’s motto is “Gradatim Ferociter,” Latin for “step by step ferociously.” Its mascot is a tortoise.

But something happened this year that led Blue Origin to perhaps skip a step or two. It had been widely assumed that the seats in Blue’s first human flight would be filled by its own employees, including at least one of several astronauts on the payroll. But after 15 painstaking test flights, and numerous revisions to the estimated timeline for when New Shepard would carry humans, suddenly Bezos announced that he would be joining others for a flight on July 20—the anniversary of the first moon landing. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that earlier this month he stepped down as Amazon’s CEO .

At the time, fellow space billionaire Richard Branson hadn’t yet announced that he would ride in his own company’s rocket ship on July 11. (That hasty decision was made to slide in before Bezos’ flight—the Virgin Galactic founder had previously announced he would travel on a test flight later this year.)

Whatever the reasons, Bezos’ announcement was surprising. Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith defended the plan in a preflight briefing, saying that the two most recent test flights proved that all systems were ready, and since everything controlling the spacecraft runs autonomously, there was no need for human practice. “We didn’t see any value, quite honestly, from doing things stepwise,” he said, skipping straight to the ferocious part of the company’s motto. So there would be no human test flight, but a high-stakes maiden voyage with the boss, his brother, an octogenarian, and a teenager.

Matt Jancer

Andy Greenberg

Kathy Gilsinan

Amanda Hoover

In the run-up to the flight, the normally press-shy company suddenly turned showbiz, releasing glossy videos and photos of the crew decked out in their bright blue jumpsuits. Original plans to accommodate a modest press contingent got jettisoned like a booster rocket, as the company invited dozens of reporters to its remote location in the West Texas desert, where Bezos owns over 300,000 acres and a mountain range.

At 7:25 Central Daylight Time, on the company’s launch pad, the passengers climbed five flights of steps, scaling the height of the 160-foot New Shepard reusable rocket, pausing briefly inside an fireproof “astronaut safety shelter,” a tightly enclosed fireproof room that can be used in the event of an emergency evacuation. Then Bezos led the crew across a skybridge—each ringing a silver ceremonial bell as they crossed—to the capsule, which rests on New Shepard like, well, a sex toy . At 7:34, they entered the hatch and buckled themselves in. Funk stuck a postcard of herself as a Mercury 13 candidate to her window, with plans to shoot a picture of it when she reached space. At 7:43, Blue Origin technicians closed the hatch and climbed down from the gantry. It was T-minus 21 minutes.

The two previous suborbital NASA launches—60 years ago—involved a lot of checking gauges and flipping switches. Bezos and his crew didn’t have any of that to worry about: New Shepard is completely AI-driven. They could watch the countdown from personal viewing screens on the sides of the large windows designed for a luxury view of the Earth and space.

There had been some reports of possible rain, but the day was stunning and clear. The countdown proceeded with only a slight hold at 15 minutes; then the count restarted. The system passed through a final two minutes of checks, all done by an auto sequence, and then a voice from mission control began the countdown: “10, 9, 8, 7, 6 … command engines start, 2 1.”

At 8:12 am, steam poured out of the bottom of the booster for a couple of seconds. “We have lift-off,” said the voice from the small mission control room on the base. Then the rocket jumped like a dart, sailing upwards until all that was left to see was a fuzzy contrail, a donut signifying the temporary hole in the sky that New Shepard had slipped through.

About three minutes later, the capsule, RSS First Step, separated from the rocket and pushed past the Earth’s atmosphere. This was it: The crew was weightless. They were space travelers. While the live feed didn’t give the thousands of online viewers real-time video, you could make out some of the audio that captured the joyous exclamations as the crew unbuckled and floated.

“Holy cow!”

“Good God!”

“Look out the window!”

“Whoooooooo!”

The New Shepard rocket had already begun its descent to Earth when the capsule gently began the journey home. A sonic boom announced the rocket's return, and in a burst of fire it landed safely on its pad. Not long after, three red, white, and blue parachutes deployed above the capsule. “You have a very happy crew up here, I want you to know,” Bezos told the control room.

The capsule, having slowed to a mere mile or two per hour, flopped on the desert floor, unleashing a wide puff of smoke. The whole trip had gone by in a flash, a space voyager’s Quibi.

Blue Origin's recovery team raced their SUVs through the desert, fast-walking the last few yards to snap the hatch. And then, one by one, the jubilant crew emerged, whooping and hollering. These space geeks had, essentially, won a Super Bowl. Their families were there to greet them, as well as Bezos’ girlfriend Lauren Sanchez. Mark Bezos emerged first, then Daemen, then Funk, who held her arms aloft in the victory sign. Clearly, she had yet to return to Earth. Finally, Jeff Bezos stepped out.

Perhaps the most ecstatic crew member was Funk, who had been one of the Mercury 13, a group of women who underwent astronaut training in 1960 but were rejected by the government because of their sex. Today, she finally achieved her life-long goal. The same goes for Blue Origin’s first paying customer, Oliver Daemen, though his life has so far spanned only 18 years. He has seven years to go to match the age of the previous record-holder of the youngest space traveler: Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov. When Daemen enters the University of Utrecht this fall, he will have the perfect topic for a freshman composition on how he spent his summer.

But as is expected of the world’s richest man, the day belonged to Jeff Bezos.

“Even as a teenager, I had an increasing conviction that [space] was important, not just a fun thing to do but actually important,” he told me in 2018 . “And with every passing year I have even more conviction that this is the most important thing I'm working on.”

And work on it he will. Blue Origin has two more space tourism flights planned this year. In the works are multiple generations of space vehicles—powerful rockets to boost huge payloads in orbit, moon landers, and beyond. He’s fighting NASA to make it reconsider a multibillion-dollar moon lander contract that the agency granted to his rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

But now he will do it as an astronaut. It took less than 11 minutes to get there. Or 20 years.

• 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters !
• Prisoners, doctors, and the battle over trans medical care
• The race to put silk in nearly everything
• How to keep your browser extensions safe
• Oregon's buckled roads are warning signs
• Do EMF blockers actually protect you? We asked experts
• 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database
• 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more
• 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones

Matt Reynolds

Emily Mullin

David Kushner

Rachel Lance

Jessica Rawnsley

Rhett Allain

• International
• Today’s Paper
• Premium Stories
• Express Shorts
• Health & Wellness
• Board Exam Results

Jeff Bezos carries out Blue Origin’s inaugural space voyage

The voyage lasted about 10 minutes 20 seconds and flew 107 km above the planet's surface..

Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, and three crewmates soared high above the Texas desert aboard his space venture Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle on Tuesday and returned safely to Earth, a historic suborbital flight that helps to inaugurate a new era of private commercial space tourism.

The spacecraft ignited its BE-3 engines for a liftoff from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One facility about 20 miles (32 km) outside the rural town of Van Horn, flying about 66.5 miles (107 km) above the planet’s surface.

Capsule, touchdown! Welcome home to #NewShepard ’s first astronaut crew. A truly historic day. #NSFirstHumanFlight — Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 20, 2021

There were generally clear skies with a few patchy clouds on a cool morning for the launch. The 57-year-old American billionaire flew on a voyage lasting about 10 minutes and 20 seconds to the edge of space, nine days after Briton Richard Branson was aboard his competing space tourism company Virgin Galactic’s successful inaugural suborbital flight from New Mexico.

New Shepard was designed to hurtle at speeds upwards of 2,200 miles (3,540 km) per hour to an altitude beyond the so-called Kármán line – 62 miles (100 km) – set by an international aeronautics body as defining the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space. After the capsule separates from the booster, the crew was due to have unbuckled for a few minutes of weightlessness.

Then the capsule returned to Earth under parachutes, using a last-minute retro-thrust system that expelled a “pillow of air” for a soft landing in the Texas desert.

Bezos gave a thumbs-up sign from inside the capsule after landing on the desert floor before stepping out, wearing a cowboy hat and blue flight suit, and giving company employees high fives.

The mission was part of a fiercely competitive battle between Bezos’ Blue Origin and fellow billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to tap a potentially lucrative space tourism market the Swiss bank UBS estimates will be worth $3 billion annually in a decade.

Bezos and the other passengers climbed into an SUV vehicle for a short drive to the launch pad before walking up a tower and getting aboard the gleaming white spacecraft, with a blue feather design on its side. Each passenger rang a shiny bell before boarding the craft’s capsule. Branson got to space first, but Bezos was due to fly higher – 62 miles (100 km) for Blue Origin compared to 53 miles (86 km) for Virgin Galactic – in what experts call the world’s first unpiloted space flight with an all-civilian crew. It represents Blue Origin’s first crewed flight to space. Bezos, founder of ecommerce company Amazon.com Inc, and his brother Mark Bezos, a private equity executive, were joined by two others. Pioneering female aviator Wally Funk, 82, and recent high school graduate Oliver Daemen, 18, become the oldest and youngest people to reach space.

Bezos embraced Funk after the landing. The flight coincides with the anniversary of Americans Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin becoming the first humans to walk on the moon, on July 20, 1969. New Shepard is named for Alan Shepard, who in 1961 became the first American in space.

Funk was one of the so-called Mercury 13 group of women who trained to become NASA astronauts in the early 1960s but was passed over because of her gender. Daemen, Blue Origin’s first paying customer, is set to study physics and innovation management in the Netherlands. His father, who heads investment management firm Somerset Capital Partners, was on site to watch his son fly to space. The launch was witnessed by members of the Bezos family and Blue Origin employees, and a few spectators gathered along the highway before dawn. Spectators applauded during the flight.

Minutes of weightlessness

New Shepard is a 60-foot-tall (18.3-meters-tall) and fully autonomous rocket-and-capsule combo that cannot be piloted from inside the spacecraft. It is completely computer-flown and had none of Blue Origin’s staff astronauts or trained personnel onboard.

Virgin Galactic used a space plane with a pair of pilots onboard. The reusable Blue Origin booster had previously flown twice to space. The launch represented another step in the race to establish a space tourism sector that Swiss investment bank UBS estimates will reach $3 billion annually in a decade.

Another billionaire tech mogul, Elon Musk, plans to send an all-civilian crew on a several-day orbital mission on his Crew Dragon capsule in September. On Twitter, Musk wished the Blue Origin crew “best of luck” hours before the launch. Blue Origin aims for the first of two more passenger flights this year to happen in September or October. Blue Origin appears to have a reservoir of future customers. More than 6,000 people from at least 143 countries entered an auction to become the first paying customer. The auction winner, who made a $28 million bid, dropped out of Tuesday’s flight, opening the way for Daemen.

Virgin Galactic has said 600 people have booked reservations, priced at about $250,000 per ticket. Branson has said he aims ultimately to lower the price to about $40,000 per seat. Bezos has a net worth of $206 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He stepped down this month as Amazon CEO but remains its executive chairman.

• Richard Branson
• Space programme
• Virgin Galactic spaceship

Dr Shushruth Gowda, a renowned doctor from Mysuru and KPCC general secretary, left the Congress and joined the BJP after being denied a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha elections. He is the son of late Dr H C Vishnumurthy, a socialist and founder chairman of a hospital in Mysuru. Gowda praised PM Modi's work and vowed to work for BJP candidate Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar's win.

Best of Express

Apr 26: Latest News

• 01 Study says it’s likely a warmer world made deadly Dubai downpours heavier
• 02 Richa Chadha calls her character in Heeramandi ‘female Devdas’, says she is scared to get ‘stereotyped as a drunkard woman’
• 03 SRH vs RCB Emotional Rollercoaster: A glimpse of how Pat Cummins bowls perfect T20 over and Patidar completes what Kohli started
• 04 BTS’ RM set to release solo album Right Place, Wrong Person
• 05 UAE announces $544.6 million to repair homes: How the flood-hit country is inching back to normalcy
• Elections 2024
• Political Pulse
• Entertainment
• Movie Review
• Newsletters
• Gold Rate Today
• Silver Rate Today
• Petrol Rate Today
• Diesel Rate Today
• Web Stories

• Today's news
• Reviews and deals
• Climate change
• 2024 election
• Fall allergies
• Health news
• Mental health
• Sexual health
• Family health
• So mini ways
• Unapologetically
• Buying guides

Entertainment

• How to Watch
• My watchlist
• Stock market
• Biden economy
• Personal finance
• Stocks: most active
• Stocks: gainers
• Stocks: losers
• Trending tickers
• World indices
• US Treasury bonds
• Top mutual funds
• Highest open interest
• Highest implied volatility
• Currency converter
• Basic materials
• Communication services
• Consumer cyclical
• Consumer defensive
• Financial services
• Industrials
• Real estate
• Mutual funds
• Credit cards
• Credit card rates
• Balance transfer credit cards
• Business credit cards
• Cash back credit cards
• Rewards credit cards
• Travel credit cards
• Checking accounts
• Online checking accounts
• High-yield savings accounts
• Money market accounts
• Personal loans
• Student loans
• Car insurance
• Home buying
• Options pit
• Investment ideas
• Research reports
• Fantasy football
• Pro Pick 'Em
• College Pick 'Em
• Fantasy baseball
• Fantasy hockey
• Fantasy basketball
• Download the app
• Daily fantasy
• Scores and schedules
• GameChannel
• World Baseball Classic
• Premier League
• CONCACAF League
• Champions League
• Motorsports
• Horse racing
• Newsletters

New on Yahoo

• Privacy Dashboard

Blue Origin makes 4th flight, successfully lands after 10-minute voyage

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) - Blue Origin, the space tourism venture launched by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos , completed its fourth flight with a crew on Thursday, landing successfully in rural west Texas after taking a half dozen passengers for a 10-minute suborbital joyride.

The New Shepard spacecraft blasted off at 8:59 a.m. CDT (1359 GMT), and the crew capsule separated from the six-story-tall rocket a short time later as it soared to an altitude of 66 miles (106 km).

The crew members experienced a few minutes of weightlessness at the very apex of their brief ride before the capsule fell back to Earth to the desert floor under a canopy of three parachutes, landing safely outside the west Texas town of Van Horn.

"What an amazing mission from Launch Site One. Congrats to all of Team Blue on executing and supporting today’s flight," Blue Origin said on Twitter.

The flight came two days after it was initially scheduled, with poor weather conditions forcing the mission to be postponed on Tuesday.

Unlike Blue Origin's first three crewed flights, which featured passenger rosters including "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, morning TV host Michael Strahan and Bezos himself, nobody on Thursday's flight was particularly famous.

"Saturday Night Live" comic Pete Davidson had been confirmed as a non-paying promotional guest on the latest flight. But he dropped out earlier this month when the planned launch was postponed from its original March 23 date to allow time for additional pre-flight tests.

Days later the company announced that Davidson, 28, the boyfriend of reality TV star Kim Kardashian, had been replaced on the latest "crew" manifest by veteran Blue Origin designer Gary Lai, architect of the New Shepard reusable launch system.

Lai flew for free. He joined five previously announced paying customers - angel investor Marty Allen, real estate veteran Marc Hagle and his wife Sharon Hagle, entrepreneur and University of North Carolina professor Jim Kitchen and George Nield, founder and president of Commercial Space Technologies.

Bezos, the billionaire founder of online retail giant Amazon, was part of Blue Origin's inaugural crewed flight to the edge of space last July. He accompanied his brother, Mark Bezos , trailblazing octogenarian female aviator Wally Funk and an 18-year-old Dutch high school graduate.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; Editing by Mark Porter)

Recommended Stories

Nfl draft: packers fan upset with team's 1st pick, and lions fans hilariously rubbed it in.

Not everyone was thrilled with their team's draft on Thursday night.

Broncos, Jets, Lions and Texans have new uniforms. Let's rank them

Which new uniforms are winners this season?

Jamie Dimon is worried the US economy is headed back to the 1970s

JPMorgan's CEO is concerned the US economy could be in for a repeat of the stagflation that hampered the country during the 1970s.

Based on the odds, here's what the top 10 picks of the NFL Draft will be

What would a mock draft look like using just betting odds?

Luka makes Clippers look old, Suns are in big trouble & a funeral for Lakers | Good Word with Goodwill

Vincent Goodwill and Tom Haberstroh break down last night’s NBA Playoffs action and preview several games for tonight and tomorrow.

Dave McCarty, player on 2004 Red Sox championship team, dies 1 week after team's reunion

The Red Sox were already mourning the loss of Tim Wakefield from that 2004 team.

Everyone's still talking about the 'SNL' Beavis and Butt-Head sketch. Cast members and experts explain why it's an instant classic.

Ryan Gosling, who starred in the skit, couldn't keep a straight face — and neither could some of the "Saturday Night Live" cast.

Ryan Garcia drops Devin Haney 3 times en route to stunning upset

The 25-year-old labeled "mentally fragile" by many delivered the upset for the ages.

These are the fastest-selling new cars of 2024

iSeeCars found that a handful of brands sell new cars much faster than others and noted that EVs are taking longer to sell than hybrids.

These are the cars being discontinued for 2024 and beyond

As automakers shift to EVs, trim the fat on their lineups and cull slow-selling models, these are the vehicles we expect to die off soon.

Arch Manning dominates in the Texas spring game, and Jaden Rashada enters the transfer portal

Dan Wetzel, Ross Dellenger & SI’s Pat Forde react to the huge performance this weekend by Texas QB Arch Manning, Michigan and Notre Dame's spring games, Jaden Rashada entering the transfer portal, and more

Chiefs make Andy Reid NFL's highest-paid coach, sign president Mark Donovan, GM Brett Veach to extensions

Reid's deal reportedly runs through 2029 and makes him the highest-paid coach in the NFL.

Yankees' Nestor Cortés told by MLB his pump-fake pitch is illegal

Cortés' attempt didn't fool Andrés Giménez, who fouled off the pitch.

Here’s when people think old age begins — and why experts think it’s starting later

People's definition of "old age" is older than it used to be, new research suggests.

Donald Trump nabs additional $1.2 billion 'earnout' bonus from DJT stock

Trump is entitled to an additional 36 million shares if the company's share price trades above $17.50 "for twenty out of any thirty trading days" over the next three years.

Retirement confidence in the US ticks up; new rule for financial advisers is set to start

Two-thirds of Americans reported that they feel confident they have enough money for a comfortable retirement, up a notch from last year.

Jets trade QB Zach Wilson to Broncos

Wilson's starting over in Denver.

WNBA Draft winners and losers: As you may have guessed, the Fever did pretty well. The Liberty? Perhaps not

Here are five franchises who stood out, for better or for worse.

Report: Red Bull Racing chief designer Adrian Newey to leave Formula 1 team

Red Bull and Max Verstappen have dominated Formula 1 since new car rules were implemented in 2022.

NBA playoffs: Nuggets erase double-digit deficit (again) to take 3-0 lead on Lakers (again)

The Nuggets have won 11 straight games over the Lakers.

Blue Origin will launch Ed Dwight, the 1st-ever Black astronaut candidate, to space on next New Shepard rocket flight

Blue Origin has not yet announced a target date for the mission, which is known as NS-25.

We now know who will be on board for Blue Origin's first crewed spaceflight since August 2022.

Today (April 4), Jeff Bezos ' company announced the six crewmembers for the NS-25 space tourism mission, which will lift off from Blue Origin 's West Texas site in the relatively near future. (The target date has not yet been revealed.)

Among the six are former U.S. Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight, who was selected as the nation's first Black astronaut candidate back in 1961, according to Blue Origin.

Related: Facts about New Shepard, Blue Origin's rocket for space tourism

"In 1961, Ed was chosen by President John F. Kennedy to enter training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS), an elite U.S. Air Force flight training program known as a pathway for entering the NASA Astronaut Corps," Blue Origin wrote in an update today . "In 1963, after successfully completing the ARPS program, Ed was recommended by the U.S. Air Force for the NASA Astronaut Corps but ultimately was not among those selected."

Robert Lawrence was the first Black astronaut selected for a space program — the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory , or MOL, a planned spy outpost in Earth orbit that was never built. Lawrence was picked in June 1967, but he died six months later in a supersonic jet crash. The first Black American astronaut to reach space was Guion Bluford , who flew on the STS-8 mission of the space shuttle Challenger in 1983.

Dwight, who was born in 1933, became an entrepreneur and then a sculptor focusing on iconic figures in Black history. Over the past five decades, he has created more than 130 public works, which are featured in museums and other spaces across the U.S. and Canada, according to Blue Origin. His seat on the mission is sponsored by the nonprofit Space For Humanity .

Get the Space.com Newsletter

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

The other five NS-25 crewmembers are venture capitalist Mason Angel; Sylvain Chiron, the founder of French craft brewery Brasserie Mont Blanc; software engineer and entrepreneur Kenneth L. Hess; retired accountant Carol Schaller; and Gopi Thotakura, a pilot and aviator who co-founded Preserve Life Corp., a holistic wellness and health center in Georgia.

You can read more about each of the crewmembers here .

— Blue Origin says it knows what caused its New Shepard rocket launch to fail

— The future of space tourism

— Black astronauts celebrate ISS, Artemis 2 moon missions while reflecting on history

The NS-25 crew will fly aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle, a reusable rocket-capsule combo that takes passengers on brief trips to suborbital space. As its name suggests, NS-25 will be the 25th overall mission for New Shepard, which conducts robotic research flights as well as tourism jaunts.

New Shepard suffered an anomaly during NS-23, an uncrewed flight that launched in September 2022 . The first-stage rocket was destroyed, but the upper-stage capsule landed safely under parachutes.

The accident, which Blue Origin traced to a "thermo-structural failure" of the nozzle on the first stage's single BE-3PM engine, kept New Shepard grounded for more than a year. The suborbital vehicle returned to flight this past December with an uncrewed mission.

NS-25 will be the first New Shepard launch since that December 2023 flight, and the first crewed mission for the vehicle since NS-22 in August 2022 .

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with  Space.com  and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

Building rockets and looking for life on Venus: Q&A with Rocket Lab's Peter Beck

SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites, aces 300th rocket landing (photos, video)

Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is 'go' for May 6 astronaut launch

Admin said: The six-person crew of Blue Origin's seventh human spaceflight includes Ed Dwight, who was picked in 1961 to be the nation's first black astronaut candidate. Blue Origin will launch Ed Dwight, the 1st-ever Black astronaut candidate, to space on next New Shepard rocket flight : Read more

• solipsist Ride on that thing? I'd rather stick to close proximity base jumping. Reply
• View All 2 Comments

Most Popular

• 2 Russian cosmonauts make quick work of space station spacewalk
• 3 Curiosity rover may be 'burping' methane out of Mars' subsurface
• 4 Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates
• 5 Lego reveals NASA Artemis rocket, Milky Way galaxy sets coming in May

University of Florida professor to conduct research on Blue Origin space flight

A University of Florida professor will fly as part of a commercial space crew on an upcoming suborbital mission to conduct research, using a rocket by space flight company Blue Origin .

Rob Ferl, distinguished professor and assistant vice president for research in horticultural sciences , will be the first NASA-funded academic researcher to conduct an experiment as part of a commercial space crew, a news release said. He will fly on the New Shepard rocket by Blue Origin, a company created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, which has a mission of increasing access to space through reusable rockets.

Ferl is also director of UF's new Space Institute and, throughout his career, has studied how biology responds to spaceflight. A news release said Ferl’s work progressed from experiments in his Gainesville lab, to parabolic flight tests, to projects on the space shuttle and the International Space Station.

Prepare for launch: University of Florida announces plans for space research institute

A grant from NASA’s Flight Opportunities program is giving Ferl the chance to continue his work and “personally conduct experiments on how the transition to and from microgravity impacts gene expression in cells and, more broadly, to develop protocols for future ‘researcher-tended’ suborbital flights,” a news release said.

He said the program aims to leverage the commercial spacecraft community by having scientists and technologists fly experiments, payloads and a new advancement: people on vehicles to accomplish more in space. NASA has collected a group of flight providers that offer multiple avenues of access to space, such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic , the first commercial spaceline, among others, Ferl said.

"I get to go to space after putting in a whole career — decades — into trying to get this experience as a part of what a scientist can do," said Ferl in an interview with The Sun. "What I hope, and feel, is that by my going to space, doors will open up earlier to many, many more scientists who wish to experience space as part of their work in space. In the new commercial space economy, the ability to get into space for all kinds of reasons — for industry, for research, for the pure experience — is going to continue to rise... We're going to see more and more people going to space and the chances for scientists to go to space to do their own experiments, rather than have somebody else do them for them, is going to be there. Going to space is going to be a lot like going on a sea voyage to work on the sea."

Ferl and his colleague Anna-Lisa Paul — both professors of horticultural sciences with involvement in the UF Space Plants Lab — have pursued the understanding of plant gene expression in microgravity throughout their careers. However, most of their experiments have been done by astronauts in space.

A news release said, as Paul explains it, science is done “in space” and not “on the way to space.” This is because on launches to the space station, astronauts now generally fly separately from science payloads.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket allows scientists the opportunity to conduct science throughout the change from gravity to microgravity, and back.

"Our program at the University of Florida has leveraged as many vehicles, as many opportunities and as many experiences as we can to try to understand what happens to terrestrial organisms when we go to space," Ferl said. "Interestingly enough, all the work that we've done over the past 20 years, 25 years, with the space shuttle program and the International Space Station has involved, for the most part, things that have been in space for a while, compared to things that have been on the ground. We actually know very little about the transition from the earth to space. And these shorter, suborbital trips actually offer a wonderful platform for us to understand... the biological process of adapting to living in one gravity here on the earth to living in microgravity up there in space."

Both Ferl and Paul helped develop experimental devices called Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tubes (KFTs), which are often used on the space station to safely and effectively handle solutions in a microgravity environment.

KFT devices preloaded with plants will mix test materials (for this mission, Arabidopsis thaliana , a plant used in multiple extreme-environment experiments) and preservative solutions to “freeze” a moment of gene expression so researchers can study what was happening at different stages of the flight.

"Our experiment is both the technology and science demonstration of... how to biochemically freeze samples — biology samples — at various portions of the flight," Ferl said. "What I'll do is actuate those experimental containers at various parts of the flight. So the idea, then, is to understand what happens before flight; what happens after the rocket is done and you're boosted into space; what happens after you float for a few minutes in space; and what happens when you come back to the ground. My job is to take samples during all those periods of the flight."

Ferl will activate KFTs at four different points during the mission: prior to launch, when reaching microgravity, at the end of the weightless period as the vehicle begins to descend and upon landing. From the ground, members of the UF Space Plants Lab team along with Paul will receive information from the flight that will trigger four identical “control” KFTs. The team will bring all the plant samples back to its lab in Gainesville for analysis after the mission.

New Shepard reaches a point in orbit (formally known as an apogee) past the Kármán line, which is the internationally recognized boundary of space (62 miles above the planet's surface). Additionally, it is designed for the purpose of taking astronauts and research payloads past the Kármán line.

The flight will be suborbital with around 15 minutes in space. Ferl said he has trained to prepare his mind and body for the experience through flying in fighter jets, simulations and practicing how to successfully complete the experiment during the flight, among other things.

According to Blue Origin, the New Shepard capsule , named after Alan Shepard (the first American to go to space) is an autonomous, environmentally controlled crew capsule. This means there are no pilots controlling the spacecraft. The website also says the spacecraft's entire system is designed for operational reusability and minimal maintenance between flights, which decreases the cost of access to space and reduces waste.

The full crew as well as the target launch date for Ferl’s flight have not yet been announced by Blue Origin. The New Shepard flight launches from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One near Van Horn, Texas.

NASA shares updated render of the Cargo Starship variant

NASA shared updated renders of the SpaceX and Blue Origin cargo landers that will bring rovers and other equipment to the Moon.

In addition to landing humans, SpaceX and Blue Origin are providing cargo landers to carry next-generation Moon rovers and other equipment to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis program.

These cargo landers will be capable of delivering between 26,000 to 33,000 pounds to the Moon to support future astronauts and are planned to be ready in time for the Artemis VII mission, which is currently planned for no earlier than 2031.

A closer look at Blue Origin’s cargo lander (Credit Blue Origin)

NASA had decided to exercise an option in the existing contracts in November 2023 for the companies to begin the initial development phase. These cargo landers will not feature any life support systems.

The pressurized rover that will be delivered during this mission will be designed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency after NASA and JAXA signed an agreement earlier this month. NASA will use either the Starship or Blue Origin cargo lander to deliver the vehicle to the Moon, and in exchange, NASA will fly two Japanese astronauts to the Moon on future missions.

This rover will be capable of supporting a crew of 2 for up to 30 days and is designed for a lifespan of up to 10 years. The vehicle will also be able to be controlled from the ground and conduct autonomous work in between crewed missions to the Moon.

A closer look at the SpaceX Starship cargo lander (Credit SpaceX)

NASA recently selected three other companies to compete to design an unpressurized Moon rover that is to be ready in time for the Artemis V mission. These rovers will be able to be delivered to the Moon with the Human Landing System, with the cargo variant being used for the much heavier pressurized rovers.

Do you think SpaceX and Blue Origin will be able to deliver these cargo landers by 2031, or will they face delays?

Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at  [email protected] , or Tweet me  @RDAnglePhoto .

Recent Most Popular

Tesla set to roll out awesome new Sentry Mode feature

Tesla is set to roll out an awesome new feature with Sentry Mode, allowing...

Tesla teases huge Spring software update: here’s what’s in it

Tesla has teased a number of features in an upcoming Spring software update, including...

Elon Musk explains Tesla strategy behind layoffs as executives depart

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company has to “reorganize and streamline the company...

Elon Musk subtly hints Tesla is entering “wartime mode” again

It appears that Tesla is about to find itself in a “wartime” setting or...

Elon Musk comments on Tesla’s pricing strategy following cuts

Tesla has dropped the prices of its electric vehicles (EVs) and its Full Self-Driving...

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

He missed a chance to be the first Black astronaut. Now, at 90, he's going into space

Scott Neuman

Ed Dwight poses for a portrait in February to promote the National Geographic documentary film The Space Race during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP hide caption

Ed Dwight poses for a portrait in February to promote the National Geographic documentary film The Space Race during the Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif.

Edward J. Dwight Jr. has waited a long time for his ride into space.

In the 1960s, he seemed poised to become America's first Black astronaut. That dream was never realized. Now, at age 90, he's about to finally get his shot, aboard a Blue Origin rocket.

The opportunity is "a curiosity more than anything else," Dwight says. "They called me up and asked me if I was interested. And of course I said yes."

The 1st Black Woman To Pilot A Spacecraft Says Seeing Earth Was The Best Part

While Dwight won't be the first African American in space — that honor went to Guion Bluford Jr. in 1983 — he will be the oldest person to go there, edging out (by a few months) Star Trek actor William Shatner , who flew aboard a Blue Origin rocket in 2021.

For many his age, a journey into space would seem unthinkable. Dwight says he's ready to go. He points out that the rigors of his upcoming flight won't be much different from what he experienced as a test pilot in the Air Force. "I've pulled more G's than any person on Earth," he says with a wry smile. "I've been high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. ... I've been doing things like that most of my life."

Space health expert Dorit Donoviel says the 11-minute flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket means many of the concerns about the long-term effects of orbital and deep-space missions won't come into play.

"The main thing we worry about is the G forces," says Donoviel, director of the Translational Research Institute for Space Health at Baylor College of Medicine.

Air Force Capt. Edward J. Dwight Jr., the first African American selected as a potential astronaut, looks over a model of the Titan III-X-20 Dyna-Soar combination during a visit to Air Force headquarters in the capital in November 1963. Getty Images/Bettman Archive hide caption

Air Force Capt. Edward J. Dwight Jr., the first African American selected as a potential astronaut, looks over a model of the Titan III-X-20 Dyna-Soar combination during a visit to Air Force headquarters in the capital in November 1963.

Those G forces cause blood to drain from the head, and that's an issue for anyone launching into space, regardless of age. However, she points out that the seats aboard Blue Origin's rocket are angled at 20 or 30 degrees. "As you're experiencing the G-forces, you're getting it through the chest, which is not affecting your head," Donoviel says. "It's distributed through the chest, which really shouldn't matter very much."

And then there's the landing. The crew capsule will separate from the booster and come down under a set of parachutes — emitting a last-minute retro thrust to reduce speed to about 2 miles per hour to cushion the impact. "It's not even a controlled crash. It's a crash," Donoviel says. Still, she anticipates no issues.

No launch date set

Blue Origin has not announced a launch date yet. But Dwight and his crewmates will train for two days before liftoff at the company's Launch Site One in western Texas, not far from the Mexico border.

The company, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, declined to disclose the per-passenger cost of the flight, but says Dwight's seat is being sponsored by Space for Humanity and Blue Origin, with additional support from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Family Foundation . (Jaison Robinson, who flew on a previous Blue Origin flight, is on the NPR Foundation Board of Trustees.)

Leland Melvin, a retired NASA astronaut who flew two space shuttle missions to the International Space Station, says it will be good to see Dwight finally "get his due" all these years after he first trained for space.

My Big Break

From touchdowns to takeoff: engineer-athlete soared to space.

Dwight sees his upcoming spaceflight as the "climax to an interesting story."

His own story, that is. One of the earliest chapters begins at an airfield in Kansas City, Kan. As a child, Dwight's fascination with aviation led to odd jobs cleaning aircraft owned by wealthy flyers. But even then, he had greater ambitions. "I told them I didn't want their nickels and dimes for cleaning airplanes anymore," he says. "I wanted to fly." At age 8, he got his first flight.

Dwight was equally interested in art and earned a scholarship to pursue his passion after high school. His father would have none of it. Art wasn't a real career, he insisted. Dwight should study engineering instead, so he enrolled at a junior college, receiving an associate's degree in 1953, the same year he enlisted in the Air Force.

After finishing primary flight training, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Dwight also got a bachelor's of science in aeronautical engineering from Arizona State University. Discrimination was an ever-present reality in the armed forces at the time, but as a skilled pilot, he made captain.

Kennedy wanted a Black astronaut

That's when President John F. Kennedy — eager to link his administration's push for civil rights to the country's early space exploration efforts — asked for a Black astronaut.

At the time, it was test pilots who became astronauts, and there were no Black test pilots. So, Dwight was invited to attend the Air Force's newly opened Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS).

But when he got the invitation letter, he almost threw it out, Dwight recalls. His Air Force peers "got a big laugh out of it," telling him that "all those guys have swagger, and it's a club," he said, referring to the all-white astronaut corps. They said, "They are not going to let you get in that club."

"And, of course, they were right," he says.

'Black In Space' Explores NASA's Small Steps And Giant Leaps Toward Equality

It was a huge career gamble. Dwight's father, who played baseball in the Negro Leagues, was strongly opposed. His mother, though, changed her son's mind. "She said, 'You are going to do this' because she was thinking it would be uplifting the race and racial pride," he says.

Upon entering the flight-test program, Dwight experienced immediate pushback that he says was rooted in racism. He says Chuck Yeager, the famed test pilot who ran the school, resented having to accept a Black candidate. (Yeager, who died in 2020, wrote in his memoir that his only issue was Dwight's piloting skills, which he described as "average.")

Once on the astronaut track, Dwight became a minor celebrity, especially in the Black community. He appeared on the cover of magazines such as Ebony and Jet . But he also endured taunts of "Kennedy's boy" because of the president's support.

Kennedy's 1963 assassination nearly derailed Dwight's training, he says. Days after the president's death, "Lo and behold, I had orders in my mailbox shipping me out of the country," he says.

Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the president's brother, intervened to keep him in the program, according to Dwight. He stayed in the Air Force for a few more years, but it became increasingly clear that he would not be selected as an astronaut. "When I found out it wasn't going to happen, that's when I left the program," he says. "I just packed my bags and left."

One of Ed Dwight's sculptures in Battle Creek, Mich., depicts escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad being led to freedom by Harriet Tubman and local abolitionist Erastus Hussey. Carlos Osorio/AP hide caption

One of Ed Dwight's sculptures in Battle Creek, Mich., depicts escaped slaves along the Underground Railroad being led to freedom by Harriet Tubman and local abolitionist Erastus Hussey.

After the Air Force, Dwight, who eventually settled in Denver, became a computer systems engineer for IBM, later opened a restaurant and worked as a real estate developer before being drawn back to his childhood love of art . Despite having little formal training, he was commissioned in 1974 to create a sculpture of Colorado's first Black lieutenant governor, George Brown.

Black History Month 2024

A child's dream to 'drive' a space shuttle propels him toward a historic nasa mission, from would-be astronaut to sculptor.

From there, his reputation as a sculptor blossomed. In 1977, he earned a master's of fine art in sculpture from the University of Denver. He specializes in sculpting historic African American figures. Among his more notable pieces are busts of jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and one of Louis Armstrong on display at the National Museum of American History.

Melvin, who is African American, says when he met Dwight, he didn't know much about his backstory. "I got a copy of his book and I read some of the stuff that he had done," he says. "He reminded me of Katherine Johnson ," the NASA mathematician who led an all-woman group of "computers," who made vital orbital calculations for the agency's early crewed spaceflights. Their story was later featured in Hidden Figures, the book and 2016 film.

Dwight and Melvin became close friends. In recent months, they have worked together on The Space Race , a documentary released last year about the contributions and experiences of Black astronauts. Dwight's own story is prominent in the film.

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Leland Melvin pose with Ed Dwight for a portrait to promote The Space Race in February at The Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif. Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP hide caption

NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Leland Melvin pose with Ed Dwight for a portrait to promote The Space Race in February at The Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif.

"He's not only funny, he's self-deprecating," Melvin says of Dwight. And one quality stands out. "He's got grit."

"But the other thing that his mother taught him was grace," he says. So, when being an astronaut didn't work all those years ago, "he gracefully pivoted to doing something else. It was just as impactful — just as impactful, especially in the Black community, which was his sculpture."

"He will now get his chance to do some zero-G floating and look at the planet from another vantage point," Melvin says.

Correction April 25, 2024

An earlier version of this story omitted Blue Origin as a sponsor of the flight that will take Edward J. Dwight Jr. into space.

• blue origin

New Shepard’s 25th Mission Includes America’s First Black Astronaut Candidate

Blue Origin today revealed the six-person crew flying on its NS-25 mission. The crew includes: Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller, Gopi Thotakura, and former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight, who was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as the nation’s first Black astronaut candidate but was never granted the opportunity to fly to space.

This mission will be the seventh human flight for the New Shepard program and the 25th in its history. To date, the program has flown 31 humans above the Kármán line. 

Meet the Crew

In 1961, Ed was chosen by President John F. Kennedy to enter training at the Aerospace Research Pilot School (ARPS), an elite U.S. Air Force flight training program known as a pathway for entering the NASA Astronaut Corps. In 1963, after successfully completing the ARPS program, Ed was recommended by the U.S. Air Force for the NASA Astronaut Corps but ultimately was not among those selected. He entered private life in 1966 and spent a decade as an entrepreneur before dedicating his life’s work to using sculpture as a medium to tell the story of Black history. He’s spent the last five decades creating large-scale monuments of iconic Black figures, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, among many others. His more than 130 public works are installed in museums and public spaces across the U.S. and Canada. Ed was born in 1933 and raised in Kansas City, KS.

Ed’s seat is sponsored by Space for Humanity , a nonprofit changing global perspectives by democratizing access to space for all of humanity, with additional support from the Jaison and Jamie Robinson Foundation . 

Mason Angel

Mason is the founder of Industrious Ventures, a venture capital fund supporting early-stage companies that enable or progress new industrial revolutions. Mason is an active member in his family’s foundation and will use this mission to inspire children and advance partnerships with nonprofits focused on STEM in early education. He spends his free time skiing or hiking in the Rocky Mountains and can often be found with his dog Leo, named for low Earth orbit. 

Sylvain Chiron

Sylvain is the founder of the Brasserie Mont Blanc, one of the largest craft breweries in France. Sylvain was born in the French Alps and is a lifelong aviator and skier. He earned his pilot’s license at age 16. After spending several summers in Florida taking additional flying lessons and watching Space Shuttle launches, Sylvain entered mandatory service in the French military, where he served as a ski instructor for the French Air Force and NATO pilots. Following the military, he pursued an international MBA at Temple University and moved to Tokyo to study business in Japan. Sylvain and his family are based in Savoy, France, where he’s also involved in philanthropy focused on children’s education and nature preservation. 

Kenneth L. Hess

Ken is a software engineer and entrepreneur who shaped today's technology-based family history industry when he developed the Family Tree Maker product line in the 1990s. The company was acquired by Ancestry.com in 2003. In 2001, Ken gave back by founding Science Buddies, a K-12 nonprofit created to level the playing field and improve STEM literacy by inspiring students through free, personalized, hands-on projects in all areas of science, including space exploration. Science Buddies has reached one-quarter billion users. Ken’s lifelong passion for space exploration is in his DNA, with numerous early American pioneers in his mother’s lineage and many engineers and technicians in his father’s. 

Carol Schaller

Carol is a retired CPA. In 2017, her doctor told her she would likely go blind. She has since traveled to 25 countries around the world, visited Mount Everest Base Camp, trekked to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda to see mountain gorillas, visited the South Pole, and camped in a tent in the desolate Antarctic plain at -20 degrees. Seeing Earth’s thin layer of atmosphere in the blackness of space will fulfill a lifelong dream. Carol and her husband of 40 years live on a farm in Lumberville, PA, with a view of the stars, two cows, 100 chickens, a dog, and a dancing parrot. 

Gopi Thotakura

Gopi is a pilot and aviator who learned how to fly before he could drive. He’s co-founder of Preserve Life Corp, a global center for holistic wellness and applied health located near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In addition to flying jets commercially, Gopi pilots bush, aerobatic, and seaplanes, as well as gliders and hot air balloons, and has served as an international medical jet pilot. A lifelong traveler, his most recent adventure took him to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Gopi is a graduate of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. 

Each astronaut will carry a postcard to space on behalf of Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future . This program gives students access to space on Blue Origin’s rockets, including an all-digital method to create and send postcards, which can be found here . The Club’s mission is to inspire and mobilize future generations to pursue careers in STEAM for the benefit of Earth. 

From an environmental standpoint, nearly 99% of New Shepard’s dry mass is reused, including the booster, capsule, engine, landing gear, and parachutes. New Shepard’s engine is fueled by highly efficient liquid oxygen and hydrogen. During flight, the only byproduct is water vapor with no carbon emissions. 

The flight date will be announced soon. 

Follow Blue Origin on X , Instagram , Facebook , LinkedIn , Threads , and YouTube , and sign up on BlueOrigin.com to stay current on all mission details. 

Latest Posts

Blue Origin today revealed the six-person crew flying on its NS-25 mission. The crew includes: Mason Angel, Sylvain

Blue Origin’s Blue Ring to Demonstrate Operation Capabilities on DarkSky-1 Mission

Blue Origin will demonstrate Blue Ring’s mission operation capabilities and core flight systems on an upcoming Defense

Blue Origin Debuts New Glenn on Our Launch Pad

Our New Glenn vehicle successfully rolled out and upended today for the first time on the pad at Launch Complex 36

Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin passes 4 key milestones for its $172 million NASA contract to build a new space station

• NASA awarded Blue Origin $172 million to develop a space station for both astronauts and tourists.
• The space station, called Orbital Reef, will need to be able to support human life. 
• Recently, Blue Origin passed four milestones in helping prove Orbital Reef is well on its way.

The International Space Station won't be around forever, and NASA is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its potential replacements.

One promising candidate is Orbital Reef — a joint venture between Jeff Bezos's space company Blue Origin and Sierra Space.

On Wednesday, NASA reported that Orbital Reef passed four key milestones for some of its most crucial technology, including a system to recycle future astronauts' and tourists' urine.

"These milestones are critical to ensuring that a commercial destination can support human life," Angela Hart, manager of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program, said in NASA's announcement.

The milestones involved passing a series of tests on Orbital Reef's regenerative system. This system will provide clean air and water for humans to breathe and drink while on the space station.

Some of the tests included the system's ability to remove impurities from the air, recover urine for recycling, and maintain a water tank, NASA reported.

The ISS has a similar system that recycles water and oxygen from, as NASA puts it, "normal human activities" — a.k.a mostly breathing, sweating, and peeing. That's right, the system turns pee into drinking water .

"Before you cringe at the thought of drinking your leftover wash water and your leftover urine , keep in mind that the water that we end up with is purer than most of the water that you drink on a daily basis at home," said former ISS Commander Chris Hadfield in a 2013 video .

In fact, astronauts on the ISS have been drinking each other's crystal-clean recycled urine for about 15 years, and for good reason. It helps reduce the amount of water NASA would need to launch into space to keep astronauts alive, thereby cutting launch costs and saving money.

Blue Origin's future space station

NASA awarded Blue Origin and Sierra Space $172 million as part of its goal to develop commercialized, American-led space stations in low-Earth orbit that could replace the ISS after it retires.

These replacements will be a place where NASA can continue to send its astronauts, leasing its own quarters and laboratory space. However, because commercial companies would own the stations, they can also be open to space tourists.

"Think spacious modules with large windows to view Earth, our blue origin, while experiencing the thrill of weightlessness in complete comfort," Blue Origin states on its website .

NASA is handing the next generation of space stations over to commercial companies because it has bigger priorities that need funding. It costs NASA about $3 billion per year to maintain the ISS program, right now.

"The agency is committed to continuing to work with industry with the goal having one or more stations in orbit to ensure competition, lower costs, and meet the demand of NASA and other customers," Hart said in a NASA statement in January.

Without the ISS, that will free up NASA's budget to focus its efforts on establishing a permanent human presence on the moon , including a space station in lunar orbit and a base on the lunar surface, via its Artemis missions .

"Overall, we projected that total Artemis costs will reach $93 billion between 2012 and 2025," George Scott, NASA's acting inspector general said during a government hearing in January adding that this didn't include the cost of launches, which will be about $4.2 billion per launch for the first four Artemis missions.

Eventually, NASA hopes to channel its budget toward sending astronauts to Mars.

The ISS is on its way out already

It's not just the money. The ISS is aging anyway. Cracks have appeared on one Russian module . Another section has been leaking air . In recent years the station has also experienced toilet failure, mysterious temperature variation, and an oxygen-supply system breakdown.

The Biden administration has committed to keep the ISS running through at least 2030. By then, NASA aims to already have made the transition to at least one privately owned space station. If all goes according to plan, the empty and decommissioned ISS will push itself into Earth's atmosphere and burn up as it plummets toward the ocean.

So there's still some time to save up to catch a ride to Orbital Reef. Ticket costs are not available, yet. For reference, a trip to skim the edge of space for just a few minutes via Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket can cost tens of millions of dollars .

If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Business Insider on Microsoft Start.

Watch CBS News

He hoped to be the first Black astronaut in space, but never made it. Now 90, he's going.

By Caitlin O'Kane

April 25, 2024 / 5:12 PM EDT / CBS News

In 1961, Ed Dwight hoped to become the first Black astronaut in space. But he never made it. Now, at 90 years old, Dwight will get the chance to finally experience space onboard  Blue Origin's upcoming mission into Earth's atmosphere. 

Dwight was selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to enter an Air Force training program known as the path to NASA's Astronaut Corps. 

When he got the letter in 1961 offering him the opportunity to be the first Black astronaut, "I thought these dudes were crazy," Dwight told national correspondent Jericka Duncan  in 2022. 

After completing the program in 1963, the Air Force recommended he join the corps, but he wasn't selected and entered private life in 1966.

Dwight said he felt discrimination among his peers during the training.  

"So, all these White folks that I'm dealing with, I mean, my peers, the other guys that were astronaut candidates and the leadership was just horrified at the idea of my coming down to Edwards and the president appointing me to the position," Dwight said.   

His dream of going to space fell by the wayside for more than 60 years. But Dwight has been selected as one of the six civilians to travel to the edge of space on the next Blue Origin flight in June.

Blue Origin, a space exploration company founded by Jeff Bezos, has sent 22 successful commercial flights into the atmosphere. Some of the famous passengers include Bezos himself, who was on the historic first flight, Michael Strahan  and William Shatner.

During the first commercial flight, aviation pioneer Wally Funk became the oldest person to travel to space at age 82. At 90 years old, Shatner took the title of the oldest person in space. 

Now, Dwight will have him tied. 

After his flight training and subsequent leave from the Air Force, Dwight dedicated his life to creating sculptures that depict iconic figures in Black history. More than 130 pieces of his work have been exhibited in museums and installed in public spaces.

His seat on the Blue Origin flight – which is believed to cost $250,000 – is sponsored by the nonprofit Space for Humanity , which helps send citizens to space. They also sponsored Katya Echazarreta, 26, an electrical engineer originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, who went on Blue Origin's June 2022 mission, becoming the first Mexican-born American woman and one of the youngest women ever to fly to space.

The space trip takes the civilians about 62 miles away from Earth and into the atmosphere for a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of space and Earth. 

The other five people on the upcoming Blue Origin flight are venture capitalist Mason Angel, French brewery founder Sylvain Chiron, software engineer Kenneth L. Hess, retired CPA Carol Schaller and pilot and aviator Gopi Thotakura. 

• Blue Origin

Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.

More from CBS News

Northern California man builds RC race track on property, turns into community space

Sacramento "Pillowcase Rapist" sentenced to decades in prison again

El Dorado County high school cuts dance program despite Prop 28 funding

Man, 35, found shot dead in car in Stockton; homicide investigation underway

SpaceX could finally face competition. It may be too late.

Companies such as blue origin, rocket lab and the united launch alliance are developing new rockets. but spacex already has its next generation starship coming..

Since its raucous entrance into the space industry more than two decades ago, SpaceX has evolved from a scrappy start-up perpetually near death to a dominant behemoth that has continued to upend the market for space launches by achieving one unheard-of milestone after another.

But after several years atop the space industry, rivaled only by nation states such as China, Elon Musk’s space venture may finally be facing a space industry that has grown in its wake and is poised to challenge SpaceX on a number of fronts.

Several space ventures, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and the United Launch Alliance — the joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing — are poised to debut new heavy-lift rockets this year to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 workhorse. The Pentagon is looking for another provider for the lucrative business of launching national security payloads. Boeing is set to finally launch a crew of astronauts for NASA to the International Space Station, giving NASA, which has relied on SpaceX for the past four years, another way for its astronauts to orbit. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

And while SpaceX has dominated the internet satellite industry by launching some 6,000 Starlink satellites, Amazon, backed by a $10 billion investment, is gearing up to fly its own constellation as well.

Those developments, however, may be too late to pose a serious challenge, analysts say, as SpaceX continues to press ahead with reserves of money, momentum and a wartime-like urgency that Musk has infused into the company. Its deep ties to NASA and the Pentagon, which have awarded it billions of dollars in contracts and elevated it to prime contractor status, have also given it a lead that will be difficult to erode.

And SpaceX continues to operate at a blistering pace, expanding the frontiers of what is possible. It flew its Falcon 9 rocket nearly 100 times last year — an unprecedented cadence in an industry that for years flew closer to about a dozen times a year. This year, it’s aiming for nearly 150 launches of the booster, which flies back to a landing site so it can be reused.

In a report, Morgan Stanley estimated that SpaceX’s revenue for fiscal year 2024 should reach $13 billion, a 54 percent increase over last year. By 2035, as SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellite constellation grows, revenue could reach $100 billion, the firm reported.

In the fourth quarter of last year, SpaceX lifted more than 842,000 pounds to orbit in 27 launches, the most by any launch company. China came in second, hoisting nearly 90,000 pounds over 15 launches, according to BryceTech, an analytics and engineering firm focused on aerospace.

“At the core, SpaceX’s audacious vision and engineering successes have disrupted satellite launch, have disrupted exploration, have disrupted satellite manufacturing, have disrupted all sorts of submarkets and aspects of the space ecosystem in what I would argue is a positive way: creating pressure for lower prices and enhanced performance to go with those lower prices,” said Carissa Christensen, BryceTech’s CEO. “Now, does that mean I think it is a good idea for SpaceX to be the sole monopoly provider? No, I do not.”

SpaceX has achieved that position by breaking into a market that for decades had been dominated by the government. SpaceX’s success in doing so has also opened the door for other commercial space companies. Without SpaceX, “I don’t think Rocket Lab would exist, to be honest with you, because they blazed the path that said space can be commercial and space is investable,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s CEO.

The way to compete against SpaceX, Beck said, “is to outsmart them and outwork them. You have to be the mosquito, that is for sure. And you have to be very agile. … The crazy thing about a mosquito is that it’s kind of annoying, but there’s a nonzero chance that you might get bit, get malaria and die,” he said.

Bill Weber, the CEO of Firefly Aerospace, agreed that SpaceX is a tough competitor that has upended the market. “You could see a scenario where one provider has such a lead … that it is literally impossible to catch up on the order where there will be true competition,” he said. But despite SpaceX’s dominance with its Falcon 9 rocket, he said there is a still a market for small satellites for companies like Firefly, which operates a smaller rocket known as Alpha.

“There are customers that want to buy small and medium launches,” he said, especially if they don’t have to be batched with other satellites, which can affect timelines and the orbits the satellites are transported to.

And SpaceX isn’t eager to cede any territory. “You don’t have to look far for examples of behaviors that are clearly designed to stifle competition,” Beck said. “There’s nothing the matter with pushing hard to create barriers for others to enter, but no monopoly in history ever survives. I think the U.S. government recognizes that along with [the] industry.”

One example of how SpaceX made it tough on competitors was its move a few years ago to launch smaller satellites in bunches at very low prices in a “rideshare program” that was seen in the industry as a tactic to target smaller launch companies such as Rocket Lab by taking away customers. And SpaceX’s perch atop the industry has allowed it to dictate timelines and prices for satellite launches that favor its launch cadence and schedule, industry officials said.

“Let me be super clear: We’re not complaining,” Beck said. “We like competition. So all of this is all good.”

Beck also said that Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, now X, and his foray into controversial political and cultural issues is a potential weakness that “certainly makes people uncomfortable. At the end of the day, if you’re delivering important national security missions, the buck stops with the CEO.”

“I don’t own a social media company to start with,” he said. “So that’s a bonus. And I reserve my Twitter comments to factual elements of what happened. … I much prefer to just let the engineering and the execution do the talking. At the end of the day, everything else is just kind of hyperbole.”

SpaceX declined to comment.

The U.S. government and the commercial sector are eager to work with an array of space companies, so there are still plenty of opportunities. The Pentagon, which recently released a new strategy designed to better work with the commercial space sector as a whole, is eager “to harness the remarkable innovation of the commercial space sector to enhance our resilience and strengthen integrated deterrence as a department,” John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said in unveiling the initiative earlier this month.

The strategy itself states that, “integrating commercial space solutions will strengthen resilience by increasing the number of commercial providers, diversifying supply chains, and expanding the variety and number of solutions the department can employ.”

Last week, the U.S. Space Force released a commercial space strategy of its own, which states that the service would seek to avoid “overreliance on any single provider or solution.”

A recent SpaceX rideshare mission known as “Bandwagon” raised concerns among many in the launch industry because the price was extremely low, according to industry officials who saw it as a tactic to take business from competitors. “Competing is one thing, predatory is another,” one industry executive said.

Some companies even complained about the mission to the Pentagon because “there was no business reason to fly that mission at that cost,” according to the executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “We’ve communicated to them, quietly, that you may want competition, but what do your actions say? Because we can’t compete against that.”

For years, many in the industry hoped Bezos’s Blue Origin would mount a challenge to SpaceX. But while it has flown tourists to the edge of space and back, it has struggled to compete. It has yet to launch a rocket to orbit and in 2021 lost out to SpaceX on a prestigious NASA contract to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface.

This year, however, it is planning, finally, to launch its New Glenn rocket, which like the Falcon 9 is intended to have a reusable booster stage, and the company is a favorite to become a third launch provider for the Pentagon. Last year, after dramatically recrafting its proposal, it won a $3.4 billion contract from NASA to fly astronauts to the moon, adding to NASA contracts it’s already received to build a commercial space station and solar cells on the moon.

Bezos also recently installed Dave Limp, a former executive at Amazon, as CEO of Blue Origin, and has said that the company would move much faster than it has in the past. The head of the company’s lunar program, John Couluris, said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that the company aims to land a spacecraft on the moon by the middle of next year — a perhaps quixotic timeline but one that means it could theoretically beat SpaceX to the lunar surface.

Blue Origin is also reportedly in the running to purchase United Launch Alliance, which would give it the heritage of an industry stalwart, another new rocket, Vulcan, and launch contracts from the Pentagon as well as Amazon — which intends to use the rocket to hoist its Kuiper satellite constellation.

SpaceX’s Starlink system beat Kuiper to the market and already has more than 2.5 million subscribers, but Kuiper could pose a challenge even though it has only launched two prototypes so far, said Christensen, the BryceTech CEO.

“One, Amazon is one of the most successful organizations in the world in building long-term relationships with a massive number of consumers,” she said. “Two, Amazon Web Services has varied and deep relationships with so many institutional and individual users around compute and connectivity.”

But it is facing a deadline by the Federal Communications Commission to get half of its 3,236 satellite constellation to orbit by the end of July 2026. Pressed for time, Amazon was forced to hire SpaceX to launch some of the constellation, even though it had initially contracted with virtually every other launch provider. SpaceX also has launched other competitors’ satellites, including Viasat’s. And when a launch of OneWeb’s internet satellites on a Russian rocket was canceled after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, SpaceX stepped in to fly missions for the company.

“SpaceX is the dominant player in these markets, but they’re not being anti-competitive,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “They helped out a direct competitor that was in a pretty difficult bind, and the same thing is happening with Kuiper.”

“They’re just winning on the basis of how quickly they innovate,” he said.

That includes Starship, SpaceX’s next-generation rocket. NASA is investing $2.9 billion in it to use as the vehicle that would ferry astronauts to the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program. While SpaceX has not yet pulled off a fully successful orbital flight, it gets closer with each test. And SpaceX is expected to fly it again soon.

NASA isn’t the only government agency watching Starship’s progress. The Pentagon is too. “I think the work that SpaceX has done with Starship is groundbreaking,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, said in a speech last month. “We’ve had big rockets before they’ve put heavy payloads on. But now you’re talking about a commercially viable product, which could change the cost for a decision.”

Starship is so big and powerful that it would have the ability to hoist large amounts of mass to orbit. And if SpaceX is able to reuse the booster and the spacecraft, that could drive down costs even further, leaving competitors scrambling once again to keep up.