Blue Origin's tourist rocket is set to launch passengers into space for the first time in nearly two years, ending a pause caused by a failed unmanned test flight.
The New Shepard rocket and capsule will lift off during a window that opens at 8:30 a.m. CT (9:30 a.m. ET) from Blue Origin's facility on a private ranch in West Texas. A live stream of the mission , called NS-25, will begin at approximately 7:50 a.m. CT (8:50 a.m. ET) on the website of the company founded by Jeff Bezos.
NS-25, Blue Origin's seventh crewed flight to date, will carry six clients aboard the capsule: venture capitalist Mason Angel; Sylvain Chiron, founder of the French craft brewery Brasserie Mont-Blanc; software engineer and entrepreneur Kenneth L. Hess; retired accountant Carol Schaller; aviator Gopi Thotakura; and Ed Dwight, a retired U.S. Air Force captain selected by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to be the country's first black astronaut candidate.
Despite completing his training at Aerospace Research Pilot School and receiving an Air Force recommendation, Dwight ultimately did not enter NASA's Astronaut Corps. He later became a businessman and sculptor; A new National Geographic documentary about black astronauts, "The Space Race ," highlights Dwight's pioneering story.
“I had no intention of being an astronaut. That was the last thing on my bucket list,” Dwight said in the documentary. “But once they gave me the challenge, everything changed.”
Ed Dwight attends a January screening of the documentary "The Space Race" in Houston. At 90, Dwight is headed to space more than 60 years after President John F. Kennedy selected him as the country's first black astronaut candidate. (Credit: Bob Levey/Getty Images)
Dwight will complete that challenge and reach the edge of space at the age of 90, making him the oldest person to venture to such heights, according to a Blue Origin spokesperson.