Blue Origin marked a major milestone today, successfully launching its 70th passenger to space aboard its New Shepard suborbital rocket. The brief yet spectacular mission, NS-33, took off at 9:39 a.m. CDT (10:39 a.m. EDT / 1439 GMT) from the company's Launch Site One in the West Texas desert.
Blue Origin New Shepard launch vehicle lifted off on a suborbital flight from the company's West Texas site on Sunday, June 29, 2025. Image credit: Blue Origin
Onboard the flight were six civilians: married couple Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno Jr., Owolabi Salis, and James Sitkin. Carl Kuehner, seated in the designated "astronaut number 70" position, not only marked a milestone for Blue Origin but also became the 750th person in history to reach space, according to the Association of Space Explorers’ Registry of Space Travelers.
The NS-33 mission — Blue Origin’s 33rd New Shepard flight and 13th with humans — lasted around 10 minutes from launch to landing. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 345,044 feet (105.2 kilometers), well beyond the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space at 100 kilometers. At the peak of the flight, the crew experienced about three minutes of weightlessness and witnessed stunning views of Earth’s curvature framed by the blackness of space.
The fully autonomous rocket and capsule performed flawlessly. The propulsion module, Tail 5, executed a safe vertical landing, while the crew capsule, "RSS Kármán Line," floated back to Earth under parachutes and air thrusters, touching down gently near the launch site.
In addition to the human crew, the flight carried more than 1,000 physical and digital postcards created by students and members of the public. These were part of Blue Origin’s Club for the Future initiative, a space education effort run in collaboration with The Museum of Flight in Seattle and Parkcrest Elementary in Burnaby, Canada.
The six passengers came from diverse professional backgrounds, including real estate, public transportation, law, electrical distribution, and environmental advocacy. They collectively adopted the nickname "The Solstice 33," a nod to their original June 21 launch date, which was delayed due to unfavorable weather conditions.
With this flight, Blue Origin has now flown 123 people on suborbital missions, continuing its push to make space tourism a regular part of commercial spaceflight. As with previous missions, the company did not disclose the cost per seat for NS-33.
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