Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his civilian crewmates returned to the EarthтАЩs surface safely after rocketing into space Tuesday aboard his Blue Origin spacecraft.
The crew launched from Blue OriginтАЩs Launch Site One facility in West Texas at 9 a.m. ET and were in flight for 11 minutes. BezosтАЩ trip comes nine days after Virgin GalacticтАЩs Richard Branson flew to about 85 kilometres in the air aboard a rocket ship he helped fund.
Global News will stream the launch at 9 a.m. ET in the video above.
Read more:
Jeff Bezos ready to fly into space aboard Blue Origin as weather holds steady
Joining Bezos, age 57, was Oliver Daemen, the 18-year-old son of a Dutch auction bidder, who is the youngest person to ever go to space. The launch also featured the oldest person to go to space, 82-year-old Wally Funk.
Funk is one of 13 female pilots who passed the same rigorous testing as the NASA Mercury 7 male astronauts in the early 1960s but never made it into space because only men were allowed at the time.
The ex-Amazon CEOтАЩs brother, Mark Bezos, also accompanied him on Blue OriginтАЩs spaceship, dubbed the New Shepard spacecraft.
The launch was witnessed by members of the┬аBezos┬аfamily and Blue Origin employees, and a few spectators gathered along the highway before dawn. Spectators applauded during the flight.
The New Shepard spacecraft was named after Alan Shepard, the first U.S. citizen to travel in space during a suborbital flight as part of NASAтАЩs Mercury program in 1961.
The spacecraft, which cannot be piloted from the inside, didnтАЩt enter into orbit but instead flew 100 kilometres above the earth.
Bezos and his three crewmates engaged in a crash training course on Sunday in preparation for the flight, which included safety briefings, a simulation of the spaceflight, a review of the rocket and its operations, and instruction on how to float around the craftтАЩs cabin after the capsule sheds EarthтАЩs gravity.
The suborbital launch marked a crucial test for Blue OriginтАЩs New Shepard spacecraft, a 18.3 metre tall and fully autonomous rocket-and-capsule combo that could help the billionaire tap into the space tourism market.
The likely lucrative race to commercialize space has attracted the attention of other billionaires, including Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
Read more:
SpaceX to launch first all-civilian flight into orbit by end of 2021
Musk and SpaceX are promising to soar to even greater heights than Bezos and Branson, sending an all-civilian crew for a several-day orbital flight aboard its four-seat Crew Dragon capsule.
Bezos stepped down as AmazonтАЩs CEO early July, handing over the reins to Andy Jassy, who ran AmazonтАЩs cloud-computing business.
тАУ With files from Reuters and the Associated Press
┬й┬аGlobal News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
