New Delhi: Blue Origin has announced another New Shepard suborbital spaceflight, the 14th to carry humans. One of the six passengers on board is Arvinder Singh Bahal, a real estate investor born in Agra and now a US Citizen. Arvi is an explorer who has visited every country in the world, skydived over Mount Everest and the Pyramids of Giza, and has travelled to the North and South poles. Arvi holds a private pilot’s licence and flies helicopters as well. The first Indian Civilian Astronaut Gopichand Thotakura had flown to space on the Blue Origin NS-25 mission.
The other passengers on board are Turkish businessman Gokhan Erdem, Puerto Rican meteorologist and journalist Deborah Martorell, English teacher, translator and tour guide Lionel Pitchford, crypto businessman HE Justin Sun, a protege of Alibaba’s Jack Ma and James (JD) Russel, a serial entrepreneur. This will be the second flight for JD Russel, who had previously flown to space on board the NS-28 mission in November 2024. Blue Origin has flown over 70 people to the Karman line, which is the boundary between the atmosphere of the Earth and space. The date of the flight has not yet been announced. Blue Origin intends to livestream the flight.
New Shepard suborbital flight profile
The New Shepard missions provides space tourists or civilian astronauts with brief access to space in suborbital flights. The New Shepard rocket lifts off from Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas on a single BE3 engine fuelled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The rocket ascends for about two and a half minutes, reaching the Karman line, travelling at Mach 3 speeds. At apogee, the Crew Capsule separates, and the passengers experience microgravity for a period of about four minutes. The booster returns, and lands vertically on a pad, guided by aerodynamic fins. The capsule then reenters the atmosphere, using parachutes to descend to the Earth. The entire flight lasts about 10 minutes from launch to landing.