Blue Origin is targeting next Tuesday (Feb. 25) for its 10th space tourism mission, which will send six people to the final frontier.
If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin’s suborbital New Shepard vehicle will lift off from the company’s West Texas site on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. EST (1630 GMT; 9:30 a.m. local Texas time).
You’ll be able to watch the action live, beginning 35 minutes before launch.
The upcoming mission is called NS-30, because it will be the 30th overall launch of New Shepard, a reusable rocket-capsule combo. Most of the vehicle’s missions — which last 10 to 12 minutes from launch to capsule touchdown — have been uncrewed research flights.
Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in September 2000, has announced the identities of five of the six people going up on NS-30. They are venture capitalist Lane Bess (who’s flying on New Shepard for the second time), Spanish TV host Jesús Calleja, entrepreneur and physicist Elaine Chia Hyde, reproductive endocrinologist Richard Scott and hedge fund partner Tushar Shah. You can learn more about them in our crew reveal story.
We still don’t know who the sixth crewmember is.
Related: Blue Origin crew, including history’s 100th woman to fly to space, lands safely (video)
Blue Origin announced NS-30’s target launch date today (Feb. 25), in an update that also revealed the mission’s patch. That update explained the significance of some of the patch’s symbols. In Blue Origin’s words:
- The mountain represents Spanish mountaineer and adventurer Jesús Calleja, who has climbed the world’s Seven Summits. Â
- The airplane and clouds represent Jesús Calleja, Elaine Hyde, Dr. Richard Scott, and Tushar Shah, all of whom are pilots. Â
- The dove with the olive branch represents Jesús Calleja and Lane Bess’ hope for peace for all.Â
- The Southern Cross represents Elaine Hyde’s Australian and Singaporean heritage. Â
- The Roman numeral II along the bottom edge represents Lane’s second flight. Â
- The winding road on the mountain leading to the crew capsule represents the road to space each of the crew’s astronauts have taken.Â
