The New Shepard spacecraft made a suborbital flight with tourists on board

The reusable American ship New Shepard of the Blue Origin company has made a suborbital flight with a commercial crew of six space tourists from the United States and Canada. This was reported by Space.com on November 22.

The launch of a rocket with the New Shepard spacecraft as part of the NS-28 mission took place at 18:30 Moscow time (10:30 East Coast time). The ship gained altitude to about 106 kilometers, that is, just above the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and space.

The capsule landed successfully after a 10-minute flight.

The crew included MIT engineer Emily Calandrelli, founder of the non-profit organization SpaceKids Global Sharon Hagle, her husband Mark Hagle, president of Tricor International Corporation, financial services risk management specialist Austin Litteral, entrepreneur and founder of the Victoria Russell Foundation James Russell, and Henry Wolfond, CEO of the Canadian company Bayshore Capital.

A new era of commercial flight began in 2021 when billionaire Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and then Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic began offering their tourism services. They have conducted several suborbital flights up to 100 kilometers above Earth, with up to six people at a time.

Earlier, on September 12, the first ever tourist spacewalk took place. As part of the private Polaris Dawn mission, billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillies left the Crew Dragon spacecraft for a few minutes and returned.