Blue Origin New Shepard flies six people to space on NS-22 mission
File photo of a previous New Shepard rocket launch. Credit: Blue Origin
Blue Origin’s NS-22 crewed suborbital New Shepard mission successfully took to the skies from the company’s West Texas launch site.
Liftoff occurred at 8:56 a.m. CDT (13:56 UTC) Aug. 4, 2022, from Blue Origin’s launch site just north of Van Horn, Texas. This launch marked the sixth time the New Shepard rocket and capsule has carried humans past the Karman line, and the 22nd flight overall for the company.
The NS-22 crew, from left to right: Sara Sabry, Steve Young, Coby Cotton, Vanessa O’Brien, Clint Kelly III, and Mário Ferreira. Credit: Blue Origin
“It’s an honor for our team to provide our customers with a life-changing shift in perspective of our fragile planet,” Phil Joyce, Blue Origin’s senior vice president for New Shepard, said in a company news release. “It’s been just over a year since New Shepard’s first human flight, and we have now flown 31 humans above the Kármán line. Thank you to these early pioneers in helping us realize our vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth.”
Aboard NS-22 were passengers Coby Cotton, Mário Ferreira, Vanessa O’Brien, Clint Kelly III, Sara Sabry, and Steve Young.
Cotton is cofounder of the highly popular “Dude Perfect” YouTube channel, known for videoing outrageous sport stunts. He was selected as part of a voting process through the MoonDAO program, a crypto site that hopes to one day decentralize access to space.
Vanessa O’Brien is an avid adventurist. With this flight, she became the first woman to complete the Guinness World Records Explorers’ Extreme Trifecta, which includes diving the Challenger Deep, summering Mount Everest, and flying into space.
The mission also included the first Egyptian to fly into space. Sara Sabry is the founder of the Deep Space Initiative, and was sponsored by the Space for Humanity organization to take today’s flight.
The flight, on par with all other New Shepard missions, lasted approximately 10 minutes on a suborbital trajectory, taking its passengers to an altitude of approximately 107 kilometers (66 miles) straight up. This flight marked the 23rd consecutive successful capsule landing, the third flight for Blue Origin this year, and the 8th launch and landing of the NS4 booster.
Video courtesy of Blue Origin
Cullen Desforges
Having a life-long interest in crewed space flight, Desforges’ passion materialized on a family vacation in 1999 when he was able see the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-96. Since then, Desforges has been an enthusiast of space exploration efforts. He lived in Orlando, Florida for a year, during which time he had the opportunity to witness the flights of the historic CRS-4 and EFT-1 missions in person at Cape Canaveral. He earned his Private Pilot Certificate in 2017, holds a degree in Aviation Management, and currently works as an Operations Analyst in the aviation industry in Georgia.
