Space company Blue Origin announced on Friday that its rocket’s next flight will take place on May 20 with six passengers on board, including the first Mexican-born woman to go into space.
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Takeoff is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. GMT) from West Texas. This will be the fifth manned spaceflight for billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company.
Katya Echazarreta, born in Guadalajara, Mexico, came to the United States when she was seven years old. Now 26, she will also become the youngest American to go into space. This engineer was commissioned by the “Space for Humanity” program, which aims to democratize access to space, and selected her from among 7,000 applicants.
The crew will also include the second Brazilian in space, Victor Correa Hespanha.
Blue Origin transports its customers above the Karman line, which marks the beginning of space according to international convention, at an altitude of 100 km. The flight lasts only about ten minutes in all.
Passengers can detach themselves from their seats, float for a few moments in weightlessness and admire the curvature of the Earth through large portholes.
The price paid by space tourists to board is not known.
Jeff Bezos had himself participated in the first manned flight of the New Shepard rocket in July 2021. Since then, the machine has also transported the actor embodying the emblematic Captain Kirk of the Star Trek series, William Shatner, or Laura Shepard Churchley, the daughter of the first American in space.
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