Upcoming Blue Origin Space Tourism Mission NS-36 Launches Wednesday Morning

Blue Origin is set to conduct its 36th flight of the New Shepard spacecraft on Wednesday, marking its 15th crewed mission. The launch window opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT from its West Texas launch site. The company will stream the event live, starting 30 minutes prior to liftoff.

Five of the six passengers for Blue Origin's upcoming NS-36 space tourism mission. The sixth wishes to stay anonymous until after the flight.

This mission, designated NS-36, is the 36th flight of the reusable, autonomous rocket-capsule system known as New Shepard. Since its debut, 21 missions have been uncrewed research flights, with this being the 15th to carry humans aboard.

Six individuals will fly aboard the capsule: industry executive Jeff Elgin, media entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, robotics researcher Clint Kelly III, software entrepreneur Aaron Newman, Ukrainian businessman Vitalii Ostrovsky, and a sixth passenger anonymized until after the flight. Kelly is a veteran astronaut, having previously flown on the NS-22 mission in August 2022.

New Shepard flights last approximately 10 to 12 minutes, during which passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and cross the Kármán line — the recognized boundary of space at 62 miles (100 km) above Earth.

The cost of a ticket remains undisclosed, but previous notable passengers include William Shatner, Michael Strahan, and Katy Perry. The capsule provides an extraordinary brief journey into space, offering a unique perspective and experience of Earth’s immediate boundary.

For more details about the crew and the mission, visit our full story on Blue Origin’s upcoming flight.