Jeff Bezos Blue Origin launches New Shepard again, with first crewed flight soon

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin carried out another suborbital launch of its New Shepard rocket on Wednesday, testing its reusable booster and capsule system, which is designed to carry humans to the edge of space and back. Like the last 14 launches, no humans were aboard this time. But with an extensive pre-launch exercise with “stand-in astronauts” on Wednesday, the company indicated its first crewed flight may be around the corner.

The five-story-tall New Shepard rocket lifted off from Blue Origin’s test launch facilities in Van Horn, Texas, at 12:49PM ET on Wednesday. It soared roughly 65 miles above the ground before jettisoning its crew capsule, which sat atop the rocket booster carrying the company’s test dummy named...

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