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It was the eighth time Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket took humans to space read more
In the first human spaceflight in nearly two years, Blue Origin took six tourists to space on Thursday.
The New Shepard rocket lifted off the launch site in the Blue Origin’s spaceport in Texas around 8:08 am local time (6:38 am IST).
The mission was dubbed N-26 as it was the 26th flight of the New Shepard. It was the eighth time the New Shepard took humans to space.
Three minutes after the launch, the RSS First Step capsule separated from the New Shepard rocket booster. Three minutes after the separation, the rocket landed safely on Earth and then three minutes later the capsule also touched down on Earth after a spaceflight of around six minutes.
The Space.com reported that the N-26 space tourists were expected to experience moments of weightlessness as they crossed over into space briefly before returning to the Earth. Unlike NASA missions to the Internatinal Space Stations (ISS) or the upcoming Polaris Dawn of SpaceX in which astronauts will stay in space for five days, this mission carried space tourists to the edge of Earth and lasted just 10 minutes from launch to return.
The N-26 was the first Blue Origin human spaceflight in two years after the company suspended flights in 2022 after a failure of an uncrewed New Shepard mission.
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English (US) ·