Blue Origin launches six tourists on 13th passenger flight
Blue Origin launched 6 more tourists into space and back on Sunday from Texas on its 13th flight. File Photo courtesy of Blue Origin
June 30 (UPI) -- Blue Origin launched six more tourists into space and back on Sunday from Texas on its 13th passenger flight.
The company's New Shepard rocket lifted off Sunday 10:39 a.m. EDT with Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno, Jr., Owolabi Salis and James Sitkn on board.
The rocket's hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine fired up for about two and a half minutes, boosting the spacecraft to high speeds. The capsule then broke off from the booster, allowing it to reach its highest point away from Earth, giving the passengers the chance to experience weightlessness.
Throughout the flight the passengers were about to soak in the view of space as the ship climbed up to the internationally accepted boundary between Earth and space, the Karman Line.
The capsule came back to earth and the booster returned back to the launch site.
Carl Kuehner became the 70th of the Blue Origin astronauts, as well as the 750th person in history to reach space according to the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Space Travelers.
Blue Origin has launched 13 passenger flights since Jeff Bezos' flight in July 2021. The company has launched 74 passengers, four of them have flown twice.
The cost to fly on the New Shepard has not yet been revealed.
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