Over the past 12 months, we saw multiple spaceflight records broken, the debut of a powerful new reusable rocket and the first-ever fully successful private moon landing.

Here's a rundown of the top 10 spaceflight stories of the year.

10. Astronauts fly over Earth's poles for the first time ever

On March 31, SpaceX launched the private Fram2 mission, which sent four private astronauts on a 3.5-day mission to Earth orbit aboard a Crew Dragon capsule. It was SpaceX's 17th crewed mission to date, but it still broke new ground: Fram2 circled our planet over the poles, which no astronaut flight had ever done before.

There are a number of reasons why human spaceflight planners have avoided this trajectory. Chief among them is that the most common astronaut destinations — these days, the International Space Station (ISS) and China's Tiangong outpost — don't take polar paths. Flying over the poles also exposes astronauts to higher levels of radiation and imposes communications challenges.

The Fram2 crew — led by billionaire commander and mission funder Chun Wang — performed a few dozen scientific experiments during their flight. They also got unprecedented views of our planet's icy extremes, some of which they shared with those of us stuck down here on terra firma.

9. India completes its first in-space docking

India notched a big milestone shortly after the calendar turned this year: On Jan. 15, the two spacecraft of the nation's Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDex for short, linked up in Earth orbit. The success made India just the fourth nation ever to pull off an in-space docking, after the USSR/Russia, the United States and China.

Those other countries are all space powers, a status that India seeks to attain as well. And SpaDex is a step along this path: Mastery of docking tech is necessary to achieve big things in the final frontier, like building a space station and returning samples from the moon.

8. European mission creates its first artificial solar eclipse

An "eclipse machine" came online in 2025. The European Space Agency's two-satellite Proba-3 mission launched to Earth orbit in December 2024, tasked with generating artificial solar eclipses via precise formation flying: One Proba-3 spacecraft blocks out the sun from the perspective of the other, which observes the phenomenon using an onboard telescope.

Proba-3 was designed to help scientists study the sun's wispy, superhot corona, or outer atmosphere, which is swamped by our star's overwhelming brightness — except during total solar eclipses. And Proba-3 delivered the goods for the first time on May 23, capturing an eclipse of its own creation.

7. Suni Williams breaks spacewalk record

Suni Williams' latest space stay lasted far longer than she or anyone else had expected — and the unplanned extension allowed her to break a spacewalk record.

Williams and fellow NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore launched toward the ISS on June 5, 2024, on the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. Their mission was supposed to last just 10 days or so. But Starliner suffered thruster problems and helium leaks on the way up, so NASA delayed the vehicle's return to study the issues. The agency eventually decided to bring Starliner home uncrewed, which happened without incident on Sept. 7, 2024, and kept Williams and Wilmore on the ISS until March of this year, when they returned to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

NASA integrated Williams and Wilmore into the ISS' full-time crew, and the duo used their extra time well. Williams, for example, performed two spacewalks: one on Jan. 16 and the other on Jan. 30. That second excursion brought her career spacewalking time (accrued over nine extravehicular activities) to 62 hours, 6 minutes. That set a new record for female spaceflyers, besting NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson's total time by 1 hour, 45 minutes. The overall record is 82 hours, 22 minutes, held by cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev.

Whitson still holds the American and female-astronaut records for the most total time spent in space, at 675 days. Williams has been off Earth for a total of 608 days.

6. China launches a mission to sample a "quasi-moon" of Earth

China continued its bold advance into the final frontier this year, launching its first-ever asteroid sample-return mission. That project, called Tianwen 2, isn't targeting any old asteroid — it's on the way to Kamo'oalewa (also known as 2016 HO3), which may be a piece of the moon blasted into space by a giant impact. Kamo'oalewa is weird in another way as well: It's one of Earth's seven known "quasi-moons," objects that don't circle our planet but orbit the sun in lockstep with it.

Tianwen 2 launched on May 28. If all goes according to plan, it will return samples of Kamo'oalewa to Earth in 2027, giving scientists their first up-close look at an intriguing and mysterious object.

5. SpaceX breaks its launch record — again

No surprises here: SpaceX broke its single-year launch record in 2025. Elon Musk's company has launched 170 times so far this year — 165 flights of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and five suborbital test missions of Starship, the giant, fully reusable vehicle designed to help humanity settle Mars and the moon. More than 70% of the Falcon 9 launches have been devoted to building out SpaceX's Starlink megaconstellation, which consists of more than 9,000 operational satellites (and counting).

It was the sixth year in a row that SpaceX has set a new launch record. That mark has increased from 25 in 2020 to 31 (2021) to 61 (2022) to 98 (2023) to 138 (2024) and, now, to 170. And SpaceX is planning to launch two more Falcon 9 missions before the calendar turns, so that number should reach 172.

4. China launches its first reusable rocket

The Chinese company Landspace has developed its own version of the Falcon 9. The rocket, called Zhuque-3, features a reusable first stage powered by nine engines. Zhuque-3 took flight for the first time on Dec. 3, successfully reaching orbit and nearly pulling off a booster landing as well. Zhuque-3's first stage crashed and burned near its touchdown zone, however, apparently after suffering an engine loss during the descent.

Zhuque-3 may well pull off China's first-ever orbital rocket landing on its next flight. Or another vehicle may claim that mantle — Space Pioneer's Tianlong-3, perhaps, or the Long March 12A, which was developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Both of those rockets feature reusable first stages and are scheduled to make their debut flights soon.

3. Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket comes online

An even more powerful, partially reusable rocket earned its wings this year: New Glenn, the heavy lifter developed by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company.

New Glenn debuted Jan. 16, successfully reaching orbit with a dummy version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft platform on board. The company tried to land the rocket's reusable first stage on a ship at sea during the flight, but that didn't work out. The second try was the charm, however: New Glenn's booster aced its ocean landing during flight number two, which occurred Nov. 13. The rocket succeeded in its primary mission that day as well, sending the twin ESCAPADE Mars probes into the final frontier for NASA.

Each New Glenn first stage is designed to fly at least 25 times, according to Blue Origin. If the company can attain such SpaceX-levels of reuse, it could achieve some very big things down the road.

2. SpaceX's Starship aces two straight test flights

Speaking of reuse: SpaceX's fully reusable vehicle, the Starship megarocket, flew five test flights in 2025. The first three were checkered affairs, featuring the loss of at least one of Starship's two stages. But the final two, which lifted off in August and October, were unqualified successes.

On both missions, Starship's Super Heavy booster came back to Earth for a pinpoint touchdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The vehicle's upper stage reached space, deployed dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink satellites, and splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned.

Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, still has to check off some pretty big boxes before it's up and running. It needs to reach orbit, for example, and demonstrate in-space refueling of the upper stage, which will be needed on all missions to the moon and Mars. But Starship enters 2026 with some serious momentum.

1. A private company lands on the moon

On March 2, Firefly Aerospace's robotic Blue Ghost lander touched down successfully on the moon. It remained operational for about two weeks thereafter, allowing the science instruments it carried to do their planned work.

This was an unprecedented achievement for private industry and spaceflight in general. Another company, Houston-based Intuitive Machines, put its Odysseus lunar lander down in February 2024, but that vehicle soon toppled over, shortening its mission and those of some of its payloads. Intuitive Machines' second lunar lander, Athena, suffered a similar fate shortly after its touchdown on March 6 of this year.

Blue Ghost's success was also a victory for NASA, which booked the mission (and those of Odysseus and Athena) via its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. More CLPS missions — by Firefly, Intuitive Machines, Astrobotic and other companies — are scheduled to launch soon, potentially opening up the moon to more research and human exploration activities — and perhaps even settlement down the road.

Aerospace engineer Michi Benthaus made spaceflight history on Saturday morning (Dec. 20).

Blue Origin launched Benthaus and her five crewmates on a suborbital spaceflight from the company's West Texas launch site on Saturday, lifting off at 9:15 a.m. EST (1415 GMT; 8:15 a.m. local Texas time).

Benthaus became the first wheelchair user ever to reach the final frontier.

The launch was originally scheduled to occur on Thursday, but that attempt was called off due to an "issue with built-in checks prior to flight," Blue Origin commentators said during the livestream that day.

Benthaus, who works at the European Space Agency, has used a wheelchair since suffering a mountain-biking accident in 2018. Joining her on the Saturday's flight are investors Joey Hyde and Adonis Pouroulis, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch and self-proclaimed "space nerd" Jason Stansell.

Koenigsmann's name and face are familiar to many space fans, for he worked at SpaceX from 2002 to 2021. He served as the company's vice president of build and flight reliability for the final 10 years of that tenure and participated in many post-launch press conferences in that capacity.

Blue Origin designated the mission NS-37, because it was the 37th liftoff of New Shepard, an autonomous, fully reusable rocket-capsule combo.

New Shepard flights are suborbital and brief, lasting just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. Passengers get to see Earth against the blackness of space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

They also get astronaut wings. New Shepard gets above the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary where outer space begins.

As of Saturday, 16 of New Shepard's 37 flights have carried passengers; the other 20 have been uncrewed research missions. The 16 crewed flights have lofted a total of 92 people, though just 86 individuals — six passengers have been repeat customers.

Blue Origin has not disclosed how much it charges for a seat aboard New Shepard.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:45 p.m. ET on Dec. 22 to correct an error: New Shepard has now launched 16 crewed missions to date, not 17.

Blue Origin announced today (Dec. 11) that it's targeting Dec. 18 for its NS-37 mission, which will send six people on a brief trip to suborbital space and back.

One of the passengers is Michaela (Michi) Benthaus, an aerospace engineer at the European Space Agency who has used a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury in a 2018 mountain-biking accident. She is poised to break new ground for access and inclusion in human spaceflight.

NS-37 will lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas site on Dec. 18 during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EST (1430 GMT; 8:30 a.m. local time). The company will stream the action live, beginning about 40 minutes before launch.

As its name suggests, NS-37 will be the 37th overall flight of Blue Origin's autonomous New Shepard vehicle, which consists of a crew capsule and a rocket, both of which are reusable.

New Shepard flights last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. Passengers feel a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space.

The five folks who will get this experience on NS-37 along with Benthaus are investor Joey Hyde, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch, investor Adonis Pouroulis, and self-proclaimed "space nerd" Jason Stansell.

Other space nerds may recognize Koenigsmann's name: He was one of the first employees at SpaceX, working there from 2002 to 2021. For roughly half of that time, he served as the company's vice president of build and flight reliability and was a frequent participant in launch webcasts and press conferences.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, also released the NS-37 mission patch today, along with an explanation of what some of its symbols mean. Here's that explanation, verbatim from the company:

• The DNA symbolizes the importance and impact of science to Neal Milch. 
• The hippo represents Michaela (Michi) Benthaus' favorite animal. Her plush hippo, which comforted her in the hospital after her accident, will join her in space. The tennis ball symbolizes another of Michi's competitive passions. 
• A baobab tree, iconic to South Africa, represents Adonis Pouroulis' roots. 
• A spiral galaxy symbolizes Joey Hyde's astrophysics research. 
• A dog-bone shape, stars in the crew capsule windows represent the number 201, and "K" are in memoriam of Jason Stansell's brother. 
• The shards represent Blue Origin's commitment to breaking down the barriers to accessing space, including cost, nationality, and ability.  

Founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos in 2000, the company has steadily built a reputation for innovation, ambition, and a bold vision of humanity's future beyond Earth. From reusable rockets to lunar landers, Blue Origin is shaping the next chapter of space exploration.

This quiz dives into the company's origins, its technological breakthroughs, and the missions that have captured global attention.

Whether you're prepping for a trivia night or just want to flex your spaceflight smarts, this quiz will take you on a journey through the stars.

See how well you score below!

One traveler on board that mission, which does not yet have a set launch date, is Michaela "Michi" Benthaus. Her voyage carries special significance: She is on a trajectory to become the first wheelchair user in space.

In 2018, Benthaus became wheelchair-bound after a mountain biking accident resulted in a spinal cord injury. Passionate about space travel, Benthaus was selected to fly in 2022 with AstroAccess on a parabolic flight, becoming one of the first wheelchair users to test accessibility experiments in weightlessness.

Since then, Benthaus' journey has included 18 parabolas and first-of-its-kind accessibility experiments, with a focus on demonstrating innovative methods for making sure that differently abled people can anchor, maneuver and secure themselves in microgravity.

Paving the way

Currently, Benthaus is at the TUM School of Engineering and Design in Munich, Germany and is a young graduate trainee at the European Space Agency (ESA).

AstroAccess is a project of SciAccess, Inc., dedicated "to promoting disability inclusion in human space exploration by paving the way for disabled astronauts."

Founded in 2021, AstroAccess has conducted five microgravity missions in which disabled scientists, veterans, students, athletes and artists perform demonstrations onboard parabolic flights with the Zero Gravity Corporation — the first step in a progression toward flying a diverse range of people to space.

The message from AstroAccess: "If we can make space accessible, we can make any space accessible."

Historical context

Former NASA official Alan Ladwig considers the upcoming suborbital launch of Benthaus as "a historical flight." He is the author of "See You in Orbit? Our Dream Of Spaceflight" (To Orbit Productions, 2019).

Ladwig's career at NASA began in 1981, when he joined as a program manager for the Shuttle Student Involvement Project. He later played a significant role in the Space Flight Participant Program, which was designed to allow civilians, including teachers and journalists, to experience space travel.

"First, some historical context," Ladwig told Space.com. In June 1984, the space shuttle program's STS-41D mission experienced an abort at T-4 seconds. The six astronauts safely egressed, but it was a moment of high anxiety, he said.

"In 1985, a National Finalist for the Journalist in Space Program was a paraplegic," Ladwig said. "Citing the STS-41D incident, an astronaut complained to me that it would be highly dangerous if this person would have been selected. If getting out of the [shuttle] orbiter needed to be done quickly, how was he supposed to exit safely with a paraplegic? At this point, safely flying a civilian was controversial, much less a person with a disability."

Equal opportunity

Ladwig recalled that the late Harriet Jenkins, who was the head of the then NASA Office of Equal Opportunity, led a study on the possibilities for people with disabilities to fly on the space shuttle.

"If memory serves me, her report came out in late 1985 … and back in the day when equal opportunity wasn't considered woke," he said.

With the space shuttle Challenger accident in January 1986, Jenkins' report was quietly put on the back burner, Ladwig said. "In any case, after the accident, it was clear it would be a long time before any [other] civilian would fly on the space shuttle, much less a person with a disability," he said.

ESA's Parastronaut project

But times have changed. For example, the ESA astronaut class selected in November 2022 included John McFall, a former Paralympic athlete, Ladwig said. His selection was part of a Parastronaut Feasibility Project to determine if people with disabilities can safely participate in a mission to the International Space Station.

"The study, completed in 2024, concluded it was feasible to integrate a person with a disability on ISS," said Ladwig, "but I'm not aware of any specific plans to do so."

In Ladwig's view, AstroAccess is to be commended for flying people with disabilities on parabolic flights. The current effort for a Blue Origin flight with Michaela Benthaus "will be an important step for opening up space travel to all who have orbital dreams," he concluded.

Benthaus, an aerospace engineer at the European Space Agency, is one of the six passengers on Blue Origin's next space tourism launch, the company announced today (Dec. 3). She'll become the first wheelchair user ever to reach the final frontier.

Here's some information about Benthaus and her five crewmates on the upcoming flight, which Blue Origin calls NS-37. (The company has not yet announced a launch date, but we should learn that soon.)

• Michaela (Michi) Benthaus "has dedicated her career to scientific collaboration for the advancement of interplanetary exploration," Blue Origin wrote in a description of the NS-37 crew. A spinal cord injury, suffered in a mountain biking accident in 2018, affected Benthaus' ability to walk but not her passion for the final frontier. She flew on a weightlessness-inducing parabolic airplane flight in 2022 and completed a two-week-long analog astronaut mission in Poland in 2024.
• Joey Hyde, an investor who recently retired from "a leading hedge fund," according to Blue Origin. He holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics and has long been fascinated by human spaceflight.
• Hans Koenigsmann, a German-American aerospace engineer who worked for SpaceX from 2002 until 2021. For the last 10 of those years, he served as the company's vice president of build and flight reliability, the higher-up who's ultimately responsible for the safety and success of space missions.
• Neal Milch, an entrepreneur and executive who currently chairs the board of trustees at Jackson Laboratory, a nonprofit biomedical research institute that was established in Maine in 1929.
• Adonis Pouroulis, a mining engineer, investor and entrepreneur with a focus on natural resources and the energy sector. "His career and philanthropic work reflect a consistent commitment to education and the responsible and sustainable development of Earth’s resources," Blue Origin wrote.
• Jason Stansell, "a self-proclaimed space nerd" based in West Texas, according to Blue Origin. "Jason is looking to inspire healthy skepticism and promote science education through his experience. He is also dedicating his flight to his brother, Kevin, who passed away in 2016 to a hard-fought battle with brain cancer."

As its name suggests, NS-37 will be the 37th flight of Blue Origin's reusable New Shepard rocket-capsule combo. Each of these suborbital jaunts lasts just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown but gets above the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) Kármán Line, the widely regarded boundary of outer space.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has not disclosed how much it charges for this experience.

NS-37 will be the 16th crewed flight overall for the autonomous New Shepard, and its seventh such mission of 2025. To date, the vehicle has carried 86 people to and from suborbital space (but just 80 individuals, as six of them have been repeat customers).

The milestone occurred on Nov. 13, during the launch of NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes from Florida's Space Coast. New Glenn's first stage came back to Earth about nine minutes after liftoff, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on Blue Origin's drone ship "Jacklyn."

The booster looked pristine, its white, gold and blue livery sparkling in the afternoon sun. It was quite a departure from the baseline visual most of us have of a landed rocket — consider a soot-streaked SpaceX Falcon 9 booster, for instance, its char marks worn like a badge of honor.

But there's a simple explanation for the difference between a landed Falcon 9 and a landed New Glenn — their respective propellants.

SpaceX's Merlin engines, which power both stages of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, run on liquid oxygen and RP-1, a rocket-grade form of kerosene. Kerosene creates soot when it burns, and Falcon boosters therefore fly through self-generated clouds of this gunk when they come back down to Earth.

New Glenn's BE-4 first-stage engines, on the other hand, burn liquid oxygen and liquid methane, a combo known as methalox. Methane combustion doesn't generate appreciable soot, so the big rocket came home clean last week. (New Glenn's upper stage features two BE-3U engines, which are powered by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.)

SpaceX has developed a methalox engine of its own, by the way — Raptor, which powers the company's next-gen Starship megarocket. Starship is designed to help humanity settle Mars, and methane makes sense as a fuel for a Red Planet rocket, according to company founder and CEO Elon Musk: It can be produced on Mars from components in the planet's atmosphere.

Blue Origin will soon find out if the landed New Glenn booster is in as good a shape as it looks: The rocket just made it back to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex 36, where the company will inspect and refurbish it.

The plan is to fly the booster again, and again ... and again.

Each New Glenn first stage is designed to launch at least 25 times, in fact. That level of reuse would be quite a feat, but Blue Origin is following a trail that SpaceX has blazed. Multiple Falcon 9 boosters have dozens of flights under their belts, and one has launched a record 31 times. That soot is just a cosmetic issue, after all.

Jeff Bezos' spaceflight company announced today (Nov. 20) that it's upgrading New Glenn, a partially reusable heavy lifter that aced its second-ever mission just last week. On that flight, New Glenn sent NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes on their desired trajectory, and the rocket's first stage landed successfully on a ship at sea.

"The enhancements span propulsion, structures, avionics, reusability and recovery operations, and will be phased into upcoming New Glenn missions beginning with NG-3," Blue Origin wrote in an update today. (NG-3 is the rocket's third mission, which is expected to launch early next year.)

New Glenn's reusable first stage is powered by seven of Blue Origin's BE-4 engines, and its second stage features two BE-3Us. According to the update, both of these engines are getting an upgrade, which will boost the first stage's thrust from 3.9 million to 4.5 million pounds per foot (17,219 to 19,928 kilonewtons) and the upper stage's from 320,000 to 400,000 pounds per foot (1,423 to 1,779 kN).

"Additional vehicle upgrades include a reusable fairing to support increased flight rates, an updated lower-cost tank design and a higher-performing and reusable thermal protection system to improve turnaround time," Blue Origin said.

Today's update also includes some even bigger news: Blue Origin plans to build a "super-heavy" version of the rocket, which it calls New Glenn 9x4. The name is a nod to the increased number of engines — nine BE-4s on the first stage and four BE-3Us up top.

New Glenn 9x4 will be capable of lofting 77 tons (70 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit, compared to 50 tons (45 mt) for the original "7x2" variant. The new rocket will also have an even bigger payload fairing — one that's 28.5 feet (8.7 meters) wide, compared to an initial 23 feet (7 m).

That baseline 23-foot-wide fairing was already a space industry standout. For example, the payload fairing of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket is 17 feet (5.2 m) across.

Today's update doesn't give a timeline for the development of New Glenn 9x4 (which could really use a catchier name). But it does stress that the new rocket won't displace its older cousin.

Both New Glenn variants "will serve the market concurrently, giving customers more launch options for their missions, including megaconstellations, lunar and deep-space exploration, and national security imperatives such as Golden Dome," Blue Origin wrote.

Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket had a very big day on Thursday (Nov. 13), and a new video lets us all relive part of it.

New Glenn launched for the second time ever on Thursday afternoon, successfully sending NASA's twin ESCAPADE Mars probes into the final frontier from Florida's Space Coast.

But that wasn't all. The two-stage rocket's huge first stage came back to Earth as planned, acing a landing on "Jacklyn," Blue Origin's drone ship, which was stationed about 375 miles (604 kilometers) offshore.

Previously, only one company had ever pulled off this dramatic maneuver — SpaceX, which has pioneered the recovery and reuse of orbital rockets.

Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos celebrated the New Glenn landing on X, posting several videos of the 188-foot-tall (57 meters) booster steering its way through the sky toward Jacklyn.

One video showed the landing itself, during which the booster sidled over to Jacklyn rather than drop directly onto it from above.

"We nominally target a few hundred feet away from Jacklyn to avoid a severe impact if engines fail to start or start slowly," Bezos wrote in the Friday morning (Nov. 14) X post that featured this video. "We’ll incrementally reduce that conservatism over time. We are all excited and grateful for yesterday. Amazing performance by the team! Gradatim Ferociter."

(Gradatim Ferociter, Latin for "Step by Step, Ferociously," is Blue Origin's motto.)

Blue Origin named the first stage that flew on Thursday "Never Tell Me the Odds," a nod to the perceived improbability of a successful touchdown.

"It turns out 'Never Tell Me The Odds' had perfect odds — never before in history has a booster this large nailed the landing on the second try," Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said in a company statement. "This is just the beginning as we rapidly scale our flight cadence and continue delivering for our customers."

Each New Glenn first stage is designed to fly at least 25 times, according to Blue Origin. "Never Tell Me the Odds" looks intact — startlingly clean, in fact — in post-landing photos, so don't be surprised to see the booster on the pad again before too much longer.

NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes launched Thursday (Nov. 13) on the second-ever flight of Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket. It was the first Mars liftoff since July 30, 2020, when NASA's Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter took flight atop an Atlas V rocket.

New Glenn sent the ESCAPADE pair not toward Mars, however, but to another deep-space destination — the sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 (L2), a gravitationally stable spot about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet.

That's because Earth and Mars line up for efficient interplanetary flight just once every 26 months, and the next such window doesn't open until late 2026. So, the ESCAPADE probes will hang out at L2 for 12 months, studying space weather in the region before looping back toward our planet in November 2026 for a speed-boosting "gravity assist" that will send them toward Mars.

ESCAPADE's circuitous trajectory is novel and could aid further exploration of the Red Planet down the road, according to mission team members.

"Can we launch to Mars when the planets are not aligned? ESCAPADE is paving the way for that," Jeffrey Parker of Advanced Space LLC, one of NASA's partners on the $80 million mission, said at a conference earlier this year, according to an ESCAPADE explainer posted by the University of California, Berkeley on Nov. 5.

UC Berkeley is another partner: The university will manage and operate the ESCAPADE ("Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorer") probes for NASA. In a nod to this fact, the twin spacecraft are named Blue and Gold, the university's colors.

The trip to Mars from L2 will take about 10 months; Blue and Gold, which were built by the California company Rocket Lab, will arrive in Mars orbit in September 2027. They'll then spend another seven months lowering and synchronizing their paths around the Red Planet, "so that they essentially are in the same orbit, following each other like a pair of pearls on a string," ESCAPADE principal investigator Robert Lillis, of UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory, said in the explainer.

"That's important scientifically because it lets us monitor the short timescale variability of the system. We don’t know what it is right now because the missions that have gone before, like MAVEN and Europe's Mars Express, have had to wait until the following orbit, about four or five hours later, to see what conditions are like in a particular region," Lillis added. "When we have two spacecraft crossing those regions in quick succession, we can monitor how those regions vary on timescales as short as two minutes and up to 30 minutes."

Blue and Gold are both outfitted with the same science gear — a visible-light and infrared camera system, a magnetometer, an electrostatic analyzer and a Langmuir probe (which measures the properties of plasma).

Over the course of 11 months, they will use these instruments to map Mars' upper atmosphere and magnetic fields, "providing the first stereo view of the Red Planet’s unique near-space environment," UC Berkeley's explainer reads. "What they find will help scientists understand how and when Mars lost its atmosphere and provide key information about conditions on the planet that could affect people who land or settle on Mars."

Mission team members will have to be patient, as it'll take a while for this data to come rolling in. But that shouldn't be a problem; space scientists are used to playing the long game.

NASA's ESCAPADE Mars mission lifted off atop Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket from Florida's Space Coast on Thursday (Nov. 13), kicking off a circuitous trip to the Red Planet.

It was a big moment for NASA, for planetary scientists and for private spaceflight. Here's a brief rundown of why it mattered so much.

1. The first Mars launch in more than five years

Though NASA has explored the Red Planet extensively over the past few decades, launches to the fourth planet from the sun remain relatively rare. The last such liftoff occurred on July 30, 2020, when NASA's sample-collecting Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter roared into Earth's skies atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

ESCAPADE (short for "Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers") consists of two identical orbiters, which represents another first: No other Red Planet mission has sent more than one spacecraft to linger in Mars orbit. (There have been other multi-spacecraft Mars missions — NASA's Viking 1 and Viking 2 each consisted of an orbiter and a lander, for example, and the agency's Mars Exploration Rover effort sent two wheeled robots, Spirit and Opportunity, to the surface.)

Each ESCAPADE spacecraft carries the same four science instruments, which the probes will use to study how Mars' magnetic environment interacts with the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing continuously from the sun. The mission's data should help scientists better understand how the Red Planet lost its thick atmosphere long ago, NASA officials have said.

2. A new trajectory to the Red Planet

Earth and Mars align properly for interplanetary launches just once every 26 months, so Red Planet probes tend to fly in mini-waves. A week before Perseverance and Ingenuity took off, for example, China launched Tianwen 1, its first-ever mission to Mars (and another two-spacecraft effort, by the way).

But ESCAPADE is bucking that trend, as the next Mars launch window doesn't open until late 2026. They'll still hit it, in a way; the twin probes are headed to the sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2, a gravitationally stable spot about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet. They'll linger there for a year, studying space weather, until the Mars transfer window opens. Then, they'll journey to the Red Planet after getting a speed-boosting "gravity assist" from Earth.

This novel trajectory could pave the way for greater exploration of Mars down the road, according to mission team members.

"If humans plan to settle Mars in the future, hundreds to thousands of crewed and uncrewed ships will need to head out during every alignment," according to an ESCAPADE explainer posted Nov. 5 by the University of California, Berkeley, whose Space Sciences Laboratory will operate the two probes for NASA.

"Since Earth has a limited number of launch pads and weather and technical delays are common, the flexible trajectory ESCAPADE will pioneer could allow all these spacecraft to launch over many months, 'queueing up' before zipping off to Mars during the planetary alignment," the explainer adds.

3. Rocket Lab's first interplanetary mission

The two ESCAPADE probes — which are named Blue and Gold, the school colors of UC-Berkeley — were built by Rocket Lab. And that's another important milestone: The California-based company had never been part of an interplanetary mission before. (It's not Rocket Lab's first deep-space project of any kind, however; its Electron launcher sent NASA's CAPSTONE mission to the moon back in June 2022.)

And ESCAPADE won't be an interplanetary one-off for Rocket Lab, if all goes to plan. The company is working on a private mission that will hunt for signs of life in the clouds of Venus and also aims to help NASA get Perseverance's collected samples from Mars to Earth.

4. The first operational New Glenn launch

New Glenn is the first orbital rocket developed by Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos. The two-stage heavy lifter had just one flight under its belt before Thursday — a test mission that lifted off in January 2025, sending a prototype version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft platform to orbit.

Blue Origin has big plans for New Glenn, which stands 321 feet (98 meters) tall, can haul about 50 tons (45 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit and features a reusable first stage.

"The rocket is engineered with the safety and redundancy required to fly humans, and will enable our vision of building a road to space for the benefit of Earth," the company wrote in a New Glenn description.

Proving that New Glenn can ace an operational mission, sending payloads on their desired trajectory into the final frontier, is an important step down that road.

So, Thursday was a very big day for Blue Origin. And New Glenn was up to the challenge, acing its first-ever flight to feature customer payloads.

"We are open for business, baby, on New Glenn!" Blue Origin's Ariane Cornell said during the ESCAPADE launch webcast. "A new day, a new chapter, has just opened for, as we said, Blue Origin but also the space industry."

5. The first New Glenn rocket landing

Each New Glenn first stage is designed to fly at least 25 times, a feature that will make the rocket more affordable and more efficient. But such extensive reuse requires a pinpoint landing after each liftoff, which we'd never seen with the rocket — until Thursday, that is.

Blue Origin tried to bring New Glenn's first stage down on its recovery ship — nicknamed Jacklyn, after Bezos' mom — during the rocket's debut flight in January, but the booster crashed into the sea. The company succeeded during the ESCAPADE launch, however, joining very rarefied air: Previously, only SpaceX had managed to bring a booster down safely during an orbital launch.

SpaceX has done this more than 500 times with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, so Blue Origin has some catching up to do. But it's a very important start.

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket just launched an interplanetary mission on its second-ever flight — and aced an epic landing at sea.

NASA's two-spacecraft ESCAPADE Mars mission is now en route to the Red Planet, thanks to a successful liftoff today (Nov. 13) of New Glenn, Blue Origin's next-generation heavy-lift launch vehicle. The countdown clock hit zero at 3:45 p.m. EST (2045 GMT) this afternoon, as the rocket began rising off its Blue Origin pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, on Florida's Space Coast.

"I think ESCAPADE is really exciting because it's a trailblazer, a pathfinder if you will, for what we think is a new way of doing space science missions," ESCAPADE Principal Investigator Robert Lillis, of the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, told reporters during a press briefing on Saturday (Nov. 8).

Related: 5 reasons why Blue Origin's New Glenn Mars launch was a big deal

ESCAPADE — short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers — is a first-of-its-kind mission to send two commercially built probes that will study how Mars, which once had liquid water on its surface, lost its atmosphere over time to become the arid Red Planet we know today. Built by Rocket Lab for NASA and UC Berkeley, the mission costs less than $80 million — much less than the agency's flagship Mars missions in the past.

Blue Origin launched ESCAPADE from its Launch Complex 36 pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The flight continued as planned, with main engine cutoff and stage separation occurring about three minutes after liftoff.

The rocket's second stage continued onward to deliver ESCAPADE into space, while New Glenn's first stage began a series of deceleration burns to attempt a landing on Blue Origin's recovery ship "Jacklyn," which was waiting about 375 miles (604 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.

Blue Origin tried for a similar landing during the first New Glenn launch in January of this year but was unsuccessful. At the time, Blue Origin didn't expect to ace the landing but instead hoped to gather data to boost the chances of success on future flights. And that strategy paid off today.

About seven minutes into flight, as the New Glenn booster fell through Earth's atmosphere, the rocket relit three of its seven BE-4 engines. Two minutes after that, the booster performed a propulsive touchdown, landing vertically on Jacklyn, which was named after company founder Jeff Bezos' mom.

"A landed orbital rocket!" Blue Origin's Ariane Cornell said during the company's launch webcast today. "What an incredible day for Blue Origin, for the space industry."

Blue Origin is now the second company in history to recover a rocket during an operational flight. This practice has become the norm for SpaceX, which has so mastered landing and reusing its Falcon 9 rocket that boosters launching for the first time are now a rarity.

The landing wasn't the main goal of today's mission, of course; that would be sending the ESCAPADE probes successfully on their way. And that indeed happened: The duo deployed on schedule over a 30-second span beginning about 33.5 minutes after liftoff.

"ESCAPADE, you are headed to Mars!" Cornell said after the second spacecraft separated from New Glenn's upper stage.

Capable of carrying up to 50 tons (45 metric tons) to low Earth orbit (LEO), New Glenn is comparable to, but not quite as powerful as, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket, and has nearly twice the lifting capacity as United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur. Blue Origin intends to position the 321-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn to take on some of the Falcon 9's current share of the launch market.

The company has designed New Glenn's first-stage boosters to be capable of at least 25 flights each, and already has a manifest of missions for customers ranging from the U.S. government to communications companies. Blue Origin has also partnered with another Bezos company, Amazon, to help launch the Project Kuiper satellite-internet megaconstellation, which will compete with SpaceX's Starlink network. Amazon currently has a license to launch over 3,000 Kuiper internet satellites, which will fly on a variety of different rockets.

The success of today's flight also puts New Glenn one step closer toward qualification to fly lucrative national security payload contracts for the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office.

In addition to ESCAPADE, New Glenn carried a secondary payload for customer ViaSat to test that company's InRange launch telemetry relay service as part of a project for NASA's Communications Services Project (CSP). The technology could be used in a successor system for NASA's aging Telemetry and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) system.

"We are excited to be working with Blue Origin as our launch partner to showcase our innovative launch telemetry services,” Susan Miller, president of Viasat Government, said in a statement. "As NASA looks ahead to replacing the TDRS system, commercial capabilities need to deliver greater performance, flexibility and resilience to support future missions."

A Mars mission like no other

ESCAPADE is the first Mars mission to launch in more than five years. The most recent one, NASA's Perseverance rover (and ride-along Ingenuity helicopter) lifted off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in July 2020.

NASA officials, however, were unable to participate in prelaunch media events for ESCAPADE because of the just-ended government shutdown, which was the longest in U.S. history at more than 40 days. Blue Origin was particularly hopeful for an on-time launch Sunday (Nov. 9) after the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday (Nov. 7) announced a halt to daytime commercial rocket launches to reduce strain and safety risks for air traffic controllers. That halt began on Nov. 10, the first of two planned backup launch days for ESCAPADE

A Sunday launch wasn't in the cards; bad weather forced a scrub that day, and Blue Origin targeted Wednesday — the same day the shutdown ended — after getting a waiver from the FAA for a daytime launch. Wednesday's try was thwarted by a powerful solar storm, however, so the company recalibrated for another try today.

Those were just the latest delays. New Glenn was initially scheduled to launch ESCAPADE on its debut mission (then scheduled for October 2024), but NASA decided to delay liftoff until the rocket had at least one successful launch under its belt in order to avoid potentially significant cost overruns in the event of a long delay. That delay added up to $7 million to the mission's overall cost for the university, Dave Curtis, ESCAPADE project manager at Berkeley, said on Saturday.

Now, just over a year after that launch delay decision, the twin Mars orbiters are headed to their destination — sort of.

New Glenn launched the orbiter duo toward the Earth-sun Lagrange point 2, an area of gravitational stability about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet. ESCAPADE will stay there for a year before looping back for a close pass of Earth in November 2026, at which point it will fire up its engines for a slingshot toward Mars — a novel trajectory that allowed the mission to launch outside the typical Earth-Mars transfer window, which opens just once every 26 months. (The next such opening comes in late 2026.)

"We build a high delta V system that not only cruises to Mars and performs the Mars orbit insertion maneuver, but first climbs out of the Earth's gravity well, eliminating the need for Mars direct transfer from the launch vehicle, significantly increasing the available launch options," Richard French, Rocket Lab's vice president of business development and strategy, told reporters on Saturday.

Where did Mars' atmosphere go?

If all goes well, ESCAPADE will leave its Lagrange point 2 loiter spot in November 2026 and arrive in orbit around the Red Planet in September 2027. Once there, mission leads at the University of California, Berkeley will operate the orbiters, dubbed Blue and Gold (for the university's colors), for about 11 months.

The probes will collect data with four different science instruments (which are identical on both of them). The science team will use this information to construct a 3D map of the environment around Mars to study how the solar wind contributes to the depletion of Mars' atmosphere, among other tasks.

"The geological evidence shows that Mars once had water on it, and in order to keep the water, you need a thick atmosphere,” ESCAPADE Deputy Principal Investigator Shaosui Xu, a space physicist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, said in a statement.

"So we know that there was a thick enough atmosphere on Mars once upon a time, but now it is very tenuous," Xu added. "There are only two ways for atmosphere to leave — either go into the ground or escape to space, and there are a lot of studies showing that escape has been a very significant contributor to the evolution of the atmosphere."

Lillis said the misson team is particularly excited because ESCAPADE will study Mars in tandem with other spacecraft already at the Red Planet. NASA's MAVEN orbiter has been closely studying the planet's atmosphere since its arrival there in 2014. Other spacecraft at Mars include NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers and two European orbiters — Mars Express and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. And Japan's planned Mars Moons Explorer mission will track the solar wind at the Martian moon Phobos, giving yet another eye on space weather at the Red Planet.

"This is a really exciting time where we're going to have all these assets at Mars," Lillis said.

Blue Origin has scrubbed today's launch attempt of its second-ever New Glenn rocket.

The delay today (Nov. 11) follows a Nov. 9 launch attempt that was also called off due to bad weather. Now, extreme solar storms, which spawned aurora borealis as far south as New Glenn's Florida launchpad, have pushed the mission once again.

New Glenn had targeted a 2:50 p.m. EST (1850 GMT) liftoff from Blue Origin's Space Launch Complex-36, at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (Nov. 12), to send NASA's twin ESCAPADE orbiters to Mars. "However, due to highly elevated solar activity and its potential effects on the ESCAPADE spacecraft, NASA is postponing launch until space weather conditions improve," Blue Origin wrote in a post on X.

A new ESCAPADE launch date has yet to be announced, but Blue Origin is evaluating future dates. "We are currently assessing opportunities to establish our next launch window based on forecasted space weather and range availability," the company said in their post.

The company will have to work out an exception for a new launch window with the Federal Aviation Administration, which announced an indefinite halt to all commercial launches during daytime hours to ease strain on air traffic controllers and commercial flights during the ongoing government shutdown.

NASA's ESCAPADE mission (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) is the agency's first mission to Mars since the Perseverance rover launched in 2020. The Rocket Lab-built orbiters are designed to help research how the solar wind contributes to the depletion of Mars' atmosphere, among other studies.

The mission, and its delay, come at a particularly volatile time for Earth's star. As the current period of solar activity ramps up, our home planet, too, has experienced some significant interactions between the atmosphere and incoming space weather.

One of the most energetic sunspot groups of the current solar cycle, AR4274, recently released a powerful G4 coronal mass ejection straight toward Earth. Its impact caused widespread aurora overnight Tuesday (Nov. 11), and led to New Glenn's subsequent delay.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Blue Origin called off the launch of its giant New Glenn rocket carrying twin NASA Mars probes on Sunday (Nov. 9) due to bad weather at its Florida pad, one day before new federal restrictions take effect for commercial spaceflights.

The planned New Glenn launch was expected to send NASA's twin Mars ESCAPADE orbiters on a winding path to the Red Planet from Blue Origin's Launch Complex 36 pad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here. But throughout an 88-minute window for the launch, foul weather kept the Mars-bound mission stuck on Earth. The next attempt to fly will be Wednesday (Nov. 12).

"Today's NG-2 launch is scrubbed due to weather, specifically the cumulus cloud rule," Blue Origin spokesperson Tabitha Lipkin said during a launch webcast. "We're reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt based on forecasted weather."

"We came down to the wire and then...there you have it," Lipkin said.

The delay led Blue Origin to work with the Federal Aviation Administration to secure an exception in order to fly again. That's because the backup launch days for New Glenn's ESCAPADE launch are on Nov. 10 and 11 during the afternoon. But on Friday, the FAA announced an indefinite halt to all commercial launches during daytime hours to ease workloads on air traffic controllers working without pay during the government shutdown.

"Our next launch attempt is no earlier than Wednesday, November 12, due to forecasted weather and sea state conditions," Blue Origin said in a statement Sunday night. "We worked with the FAA and range to select a launch window from 2:50 PM – 4:17 PM EST / 19:50 – 21:17 UTC." A livestream of the launch will begin about 20 minutes before liftoff. You'll be able to watch the launch live on Space.com, courtesy of Blue Origin.

Blue Origin hinted Saturday that the company would work with the FAA to find a new launch date for ESCAPADE despite the federal restrictions due to the government shutdown.

"We are working really closely with both our partners at the FAA and with the NASA team to ensure that we're, of course, honoring and respecting the airspace expectations there and the safety requirements, while at the same time meeting the objectives that NASA and the Blue Origin have for this mission," Laura Maginnis, Blue Origin's Vice President for New Glenn mission management, said in a press briefing Saturday.

At the time, Maginnis said Blue Origin had backup days on Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 10 and Nov. 11) available through an arrangement with Space Launch Delta 45, the Space Force wing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station overseeing launches from Florida's Eastern Range. But the company also needs approval from the FAA for any daytime launches during the government shutdown since those restrictions take effect Nov. 10.

"We absolutely have the 9th and 10th of November secured on the SLD 45 range," Maginnis said. "We are working with our NASA and FAA partners on launching as soon as possible." Blue Origin battled bad weather throughout Sunday's launch attempt, with rain and thunder cropping up during the fueling process.

NASA's ESCAPADE mission, the name is short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, is the agency's first mission to the Red Planet in five years and has been delayed since October 2024. The twin ESCAPADE orbiters were built by Rocket Lab and designed to study how the solar wind and space weather have stripped Mars of much of its atmosphere, leaving the dry, arid Red Planet we see today.

The low-cost mission was built for less than $80 million and is led for NASA by scientists at UC Berkeley. The second stage of the New Glenn rocket is also carrying a telemetry communications experiment for ViaSat as part of a project for NASA's Communications Services Project, Blue Origin officials said.

ESCAPADE's launch will mark the second flight of a New Glenn rocket (the first lifted of in January of this year). Blue Origin hopes the flight, which it calls NG-2, will succesfully land the first stage of the towering 321-foot-tall (98 meters) rocket on a barge stationed in the Atlantic Ocean for later reuse. A landing attempt during the first test flight was unsuccessful, though the rest of that flight was smooth.

Blue Origin hopes to use New Glenn as its workhorse rocket for commercial satellite launches, heavy-lift flights and eventual missions to the moon with crewed and uncrewed Blue Moon landers.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 8:57 pm ET with Blue Origin's new Nov. 12 launch date for the NG-2 New Glenn rocket.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After a year of delay, NASA's next Mars mission is ready to launch on Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket, and you'll be able to watch it all live online.

The twin ESCAPADE Mars probes are scheduled to lift off atop the partially reusable New Glenn from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (Nov. 13), during a nearly 90-minute window that opens at 2:57 p.m. EST (1957 GMT). It will be the third attempt for this mission; the first try, on Sunday (Nov. 9), was scrubbed due to weather, and the second was called off due to an intense solar storm.

You can watch the launch — the second-ever for New Glenn — live via Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, starting about 30 minutes before liftoff. Space.com will carry the feed as well on our YouTube channel, which is embedded at the top of this page.

ESCAPADE (short for "Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers") will be the first Mars mission to launch in more than five years, since NASA's Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter lifted off together on July 30, 2020. The mission was originally scheduled to launch in October 2024, but NASA postponed the flight to no earlier than spring 2026 to avoid potentially significant cost overruns in case the ESCAPADE team was unable to launch on time.

"It's been a long road, and very grateful to all the partners that have worked so hard with us for so many years," ESCAPADE Principal Investigator Robert Lillis of the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, which is overseeing the mission for NASA, told reporters in a prelaunch briefing on Saturday (Nov. 8).

UC Berkeley, Blue Origin and Rocket Lab (which built the twin ESCAPADE probes) hosted the press briefing. NASA was not able to be present due to the government shutdown.

The ESCAPADE mission, which costs less than $80 million, consists of two spacecraft, which were built by Rocket Lab and will be operated for NASA by the University of California, Berkeley. That latter fact explains the duo's names — Blue and Gold, which are UC Berkeley's school colors.

New Glenn will launch Blue and Gold toward the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2), a gravitationally stable spot about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) beyond our planet.

The pair will hang out there for 12 months while studying space weather. They'll loop by Earth in November 2026, getting a gravitational boost from our planet to head out to Mars, which they'll reach about 10 months later.

This complex trajectory is required by orbital dynamics: Earth and Mars align just once every 26 months for efficient interplanetary travel, and the next such window opens in late 2026.

"We are using a very flexible mission design approach where we go into a loiter orbit around Earth in order to sort of wait until Earth and Mars are lined up correctly in November of next year to go to Mars," Lillis said Saturday.

After the ESCAPADE probes reach the Red Planet, they will spend about seven months lowering themselves into precisely aligned orbits, then gather data for at least 11 months.

The orbiters will "fly in formation to map the magnetic fields, upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Mars in 3D, providing the first stereo view of the Red Planet’s unique near-space environment," UC Berkeley wrote in a mission description.

"What they find will help scientists understand how and when Mars lost its atmosphere and provide key information about conditions on the planet that could affect people who land or settle on Mars," the university added.

Today's launch will be the second to date for the 321-foot-tall New Glenn, which can haul about 50 tons (45 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit.

The rocket debuted with a successful test flight on Jan. 16, 2025, which sent a prototype version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft platform to orbit.

The company failed in its attempt to land New Glenn's first stage on a ship at sea that day. It will try this landmark maneuver again today, so there will be lots of action for space fans to watch.

"Our number one objective is to deliver ESCAPADE safely and successfully on its way to L2, and then eventually on to Mars," Laura Maginnis, Blue Origin's vice president of New Glenn mission management, said during Saturday's briefing. "We also wanting to land our booster, but if we don't land the booster, that's okay. We have several more vehicles in production."

New Glenn's first-stage booster will hopefully land on the landing platform Jacklyn now stationed in the Atlantic Ocean about 375 miles off the Florida coast, Blue Origin officials said. It should take up to five days to return the booster to Cape Canaveral, if all goes well.

Blue Origin originally had three days — Nov. 9, Nov. 10 and Nov. 11 — in which to try and launch ESCAPADE to Mars. But a new wrinkle popped up on Friday (Nov. 7).

Due to the government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a halt to daytime commercial rocket launches as of Nov. 10 in order to prioritize airspace for commercial air travel. Air traffic controllers have been working without pay during the shutdown, and the restrictions on commercial rocket launches are aimed at easing the strain on controllers and pilots, FAA officials have said.

After Blue Origin was unable to launch on Sunday (Nov. 9), the company sought an exception to the FAA restrictions for potential launches later in the wekk, since those windows are during the daytime, Maginnis said.

"We are working really closely with both our partners at the FAA and with the NASA team to ensure that we're, of course, honoring and respecting the airspace expectations there and the safety requirements, while at the same time meeting the objectives that NASA and the Blue Origin have for this mission," Maginnis said. "So, we're working closely with them on opportunities for exceptions to the policy based on how our mission goes."

Those efforts were successful, as New Glenn and ESCAPADE were set to launch on Wednesday — and are now ready to go today.

Editor's note: This story was substantially updated to incude comments and details from Blue Origin and UC Berkeley's ESCAPADE prelaunch briefing on Nov. 8. Space.com Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik contributed to this report from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was updated again at 3:30 p.m. ET on Nov. 11 with more information about the new Nov. 12 launch date. It was updated at 12:30 a.m. ET on Nov. 13 with news of the Nov. 13 launch date.

New Glenn is vertical on the pad and its engines are hot.

The second-ever liftoff of Blue Origin's powerful New Glenn rocket is approaching as the launch vehicle undergoes final checkouts at Launch Complex-36A (LC-36A), at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. New Glenn will fly NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes on an ambitious mission to Mars, and could launch as Nov. 9.

The rocket was rolled out to LC-36A the night of Oct. 28, according to a Blue Origin post on X, and went vertical at the pad on Wednesday night (Oct. 29). Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp posted video of the New Glenn Transporter Erector (TE) raising the vehicle the same evening, saying a hot-fire test would follow once the TE was was secured and checkouts complete.

That hot-fire test came on Thursday night (Oct. 30). In a clamped-down ignition, New Glenn's seven BE-4 first stage engines fired up and performed as planned. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos posted a video of the engine test that night on X, which was followed shortly followed by Blue Origin's own post announcing the milestone.

"All seven engines performed nominally with a 38-second duration test, including all seven engines operating at 100% thrust for 22 seconds," Blue Origin said on X.

NASA's ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) probes were integrated on top of New Glenn earlier this month at Blue Origin's Titusville, Florida, facility. The Rocket Lab-built twin spacecraft will head to orbit around Mars, where they will study the Red Planet's magnetosphere and analyze how energetic solar wind particles interact with the Martian atmosphere.

The duo were originally slated to fly on the first New Glenn launch, which was targeted for 2024. But NASA pulled the probes from the mission due to concerns about relying on an unproven rocket to successfully launch them to Mars.

New Glenn ended up debuting in January 2025, on a test flight that successfully sent a pathfinder version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft to orbit.

The $80 million ESCAPADE mission is a high-profile one for New Glenn's second launch, which will be NASA's first mission headed to Mars since the Perseverance rover launched in July 2020, and the first interplanetary launch ever for the new rocket.

Blue Origin will attempt to recover New Glenn's first stage during the ESCAPADE launch, by way of propulsive landing on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. The nearly 189-foot-tall (58 meters) booster failed in its landing attempt during its first launch.

Satellite communications company Viasat will fly a technology demonstration as a secondary payload aboard New Glenn on the upcoming launch. That payload is part of NASA's Communications Services Project, which seeks out commercial partnerships to develop networking capabilities for near-Earth satellites.

In April 2021, NASA awarded Elon Musk's company a $2.9 billion contract to provide the first crewed lunar lander for the agency's Artemis program. That vehicle, a modified upper stage of SpaceX's Starship megarocket, is supposed to land astronauts on the moon for the first time on the upcoming Artemis 3 mission.

But NASA isn't satisfied with the pace of Starship's development and is therefore shaking things up, acting agency chief Sean Duffy announced on Monday (Oct. 20).

"I love SpaceX; it's an amazing company. The problem is, they're behind. They've pushed their timelines out, and we're in a race against China," Duffy said on Monday morning, during an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box."

"The president and I want to get to the moon in this president's term, so I'm gonna open up the contract," he added. "I'm gonna let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin."

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, won an Artemis Human Landing System contract of its own in 2023, an award worth $3.4 billion. The company plans to fulfill that deal with its Blue Moon lander, which was originally expected to make its crewed lunar debut on the Artemis 5 mission.

Musk voiced skepticism that Blue Origin could speed up its timeline enough to be ready for a crewed moon mission before SpaceX.

"Blue Origin has never delivered a payload to orbit, let alone the moon," the world's richest person said via X on Monday, qualifying that to "useful payload" in a follow-up post. (Blue Origin's huge New Glenn rocket carried a prototype of the company's Blue Ring spacecraft to Earth orbit on its first — and so far, only — launch this past January.)

Artemis 3's timeline has shifted to the right several times over the past few years, and not just because Starship is still in the testing phase; issues with spacesuits, NASA's Orion capsule and other tech have also played a role. (Orion will carry Artemis astronauts to lunar orbit, where they'll meet up with the lander that will deliver them to the surface.)

The launch date was originally targeted for late 2024 but was pushed back to 2025, September 2026 and then mid-2027.

And NASA is now apparently eyeing an even later timeline: In Monday's "Squawk Box" interview, Duffy suggests that 2028 is the target for Artemis 3.

The Artemis program has one launch under its belt — that of Artemis 1, which successfully sent an uncrewed Orion to and from lunar orbit in late 2022.

NASA is now gearing up for Artemis 2, which will launch four people on a 10-day journey around the moon next year. That mission remains on track to launch as early as February, Duffy said on Monday.

SpaceX's Starship, meanwhile, has launched on 11 suborbital test flights to date. The most recent two liftoffs, which took place on Aug. 26 and Oct. 13, respectively, were fully successful.

As Duffy noted, China has moon plans of its own: The nation plans to land astronauts on Earth's nearest neighbor by 2030 and is making serious progress toward achieving that goal. No humans have touched the lunar surface since NASA's Apollo 17 astronauts did so in December 1972.

Blue Origin's second New Glenn rocket just made a big move.

Jeff Bezos' company rolled a New Glenn first stage out to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Wednesday (Oct. 8) to help prep the vehicle for its upcoming liftoff.

That launch, which is expected to take place late this month or in November, will send NASA's twin ESCAPADE probes to Mars.

New Glenn stands about 320 feet tall (98 meters) when fully stacked. Like SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, the Blue Origin launcher features a reusable first stage.

New Glenn debuted this past January on a test flight that reached orbit as planned. Blue Origin tried to land the first stage on a ship at sea after liftoff that day but came up short.

Mission number two is an operational flight: It will send the two ESCAPADE ("Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers") orbiters rocketing toward the Red Planet, where they will study the Martian atmosphere and how it is affected by the solar wind and space weather.

Those two probes — which are named Blue and Gold, and were built by the California-based company Rocket Lab — arrived on Florida's Space Coast on Sept. 22.

Wednesday was a big day for Blue Origin. That same morning, the company sent six people to and from suborbital space on its New Shepard vehicle.

The mission, which launched from Blue Origin's West Texas site, was the company's 15th human spaceflight and the 36th overall launch of the New Shepard system.

Blue Origin launched its 15th space tourism flight today (Oct. 8), sending six people on a brief trip to the final frontier, including a mystery passenger who only revealed his identity after the flight.

The company's New Shepard vehicle lifted off from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site today at 9:40 a.m. EDT (1340 GMT; 8:40 a.m. local Texas time), kicking off a suborbital flight known as NS-36.

Everything went according to plan for Blue Origin. New Shepard's first stage came back to Earth for a vertical, powered landing about 8 minutes after launch, and the autonomous vehicle's capsule followed suit several minutes later, touching down under parachutes in the Texas desert.

Flying on that capsule were franchise-industry executive Jeff Elgin, media entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, electrical engineer Clint Kelly III, software entrepreneur and author Aaron Newman, and Ukrainian businessman and investor Vitalii Ostrovsky.

"Oh my God, oh my God!" Karagussova could be heard exclaiming as they reached space. She and her crewmates had dubbed themselves the "Space Nomads" for the flight, as each Blue Origin crew picks its own nickname, the company said.

There was also a sixth mystery passenger, who wanted to remain anonymous until after the flight.

That mystery space tourist was Will Lewis, CEO and chair of the medical biotech company Insmed. "He is an experienced adventurer and considers NS-36 to be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream," Blue Origin spokesperson Tabitha Lipkin said during live commentary.

NS-36 was the second spaceflight for Kelly, who performed pioneering robotics and computer-science research in the 1980s at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He also went to space on Blue Origin's NS-22 mission in August 2022.

You can read more about each NS-36 passenger in our crew reveal story.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, has been flying New Shepard for a decade now.

As its name suggests, today's flight was the 36th overall for the reusable vehicle. It was just the 15th to carry people, however; most New Shepard jaunts have been uncrewed research flights.

New Shepard gets more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth — higher than the Kármán line, the widely recognized boundary of outer space. Passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see Earth against the blackness of space.

Blue Origin said the NS-36 space tourists reached a maximum altitude of about 66 miles (107 kilometers), just above the Kármán line during their flight. From liftoff to landing, the entire mission lasted 10 minutes and 21 seconds.

Blue Origin has not revealed its New Shepard ticket prices. But, for some perspective: The company's biggest competitor in the suborbital tourism business, Virgin Galactic, charged $600,000 per seat for its most recent flights.

UPDATE: Blue Origin is now targeting 9:40 am ET (1340 GMT) for the launch of six passengers on its NS-36 space tourist flight.

Blue Origin plans to launch its 15th space tourism mission on today (Oct. 8), and you can watch the action live.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, is targeting a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Wednesday morning for the latest flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

You can watch the liftoff — which will take place from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site — live here at Space.com, courtesy of the company. Coverage will begin 30 minutes before liftoff.

Blue Origin calls today's mission NS-36, because it will be the 36th overall flight of New Shepard, an autonomous, reusable rocket-capsule combo. Twenty-one of New Shepard's missions to date have been uncrewed research flights; this will be the 15th to carry people.

Six people will go up on NS-36. They are franchise-industry executive Jeff Elgin, media entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, electrical engineer and robotics researcher Clint Kelly III, software entrepreneur Aaron Newman, Ukrainian businessman Vitalii Ostrovsky, and a sixth passenger who wishes to remain anonymous until after the flight.

Kelly is a spaceflight veteran; he also flew on Blue Origin's NS-22 mission in August 2022.

You can read more about each of these passengers in our NS-36 crew reveal story.

New Shepard flights last 10 to 12 minutes from launch until capsule touchdown. Passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness during this time, and they get above the Kármán line — the widely recognized boundary of outer space, which lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth.

It's unclear how much a seat aboard New Shepard costs; Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices.

New Shepard has carried some famous people to and from the final frontier over the past few years. Passengers on previous flights include "Star Trek" icon William Shatner, NFL Hall of Famer Michael Strahan and pop superstar Katy Perry.

On Wednesday (Oct. 1), Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, announced the passenger list for NS-36, the next flight of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. (We don't yet know when NS-36 will launch; that info is coming soon, according to Blue Origin.)

The company gave us five names for NS-36. There will also be a sixth, but that person "asked to remain anonymous until after the flight," Blue Origin wrote in an update on Wednesday. Here's a brief rundown of the announced five, using information provided in the update.

• Jeff Elgin, founder of FranChoice, a network that helps match people with franchise-owning opportunities.
• Danna Karagussova, founder of Portals, "a multimodal ecosystem that features digital self-regulation tools that fuse art and science," according to Blue Origin. She's also a lifelong mountaineer.
• Dr. Clint Kelly III, an electrical engineer with a long history in computer and robotics research. His work at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the 1980s helped lay the foundation for driverless cars, Blue Origin wrote. He's also a wildlife photographer who wrote a book about penguins. Kelly has already flown with Blue Origin, reaching space on the NS-22 mission in August 2022.
• Aaron Newman, an entrepreneur who founded five software startups. Newman is also a veteran of the U.S. Army and an explorer, having descended into the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot in the world's oceans.
• Vitalii Ostrovsky, a Ukrainian businessman, investor and globetrotter who has lived in more than 100 countries around the world.

As its name suggests, NS-36 will be the 36th spaceflight for New Shepard, which consists of a reusable booster and a reusable capsule. It will be just the 15th New Shepard tourist flight, however; most of the vehicle's missions have been uncrewed research flights.

New Shepard flights — crewed or uncrewed — last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to the parachute-aided touchdown of the capsule. Passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space. It's unclear how much this costs; Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices.

Blue Origin had originally targeted no earlier than Sept. 29 for the second New Glenn launch, designated NG-2, but now says the mission is slated for NET mid-October. The rocket's ESCAPADE payload is awaiting vehicle integration at Blue Origin's Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Florida, while New Glenn's first stage (GS1) booster is prepped for an engine test at Launch Complex-36 (LC-36).

"ESCAPADE is at Astrotech and GS1 is headed to LC-36 in early October. Next up is the vehicle hotfire mid-month with launch soon thereafter," Blue Origin wrote in a post on social media.

NASA's ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) probes have been patiently waiting their turn for a ride to space for more than a year. The pair was slated to launch as a part of New Glenn's debut mission, but NASA ended up deciding not to risk its next flight to Mars on an unproven rocket.

The twin satellites were built by California-based Rocket Lab, and will be operated by the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory once they reach orbit.

Satisfied with Blue Origin's results from New Glenn's first liftoff, ESCAPADE was added back to the manifest and assigned as the rocket's second mission.

It's a high profile project for New Glenn, and is indicative of the level of confidence NASA has in the launch vehicle. The $80 million ESCAPADE mission will be New Glenn's first interplanetary launch and is headed to Mars orbit. There, the probes will study the planet's magnetosphere and analyze how energetic solar wind particles interact with the Martian atmosphere.

New Glenn's first launch successfully delivered a test version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring satellite bus to Earth orbit, but failed to recover the rocket's nearly 189-foot-tall (58-meter-tall) first stage booster during its landing attempt on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. Blue Origin plans to attempt a recovery the GS1 booster as part of the upcoming launch as well.

NG-2 will also carry a secondary payload. Satellite communications company Viasat is flying a technology demonstration as a part of NASA's Communications Services Project, which partners with the commercial sector to evolve networking technologies for near-Earth satellites.

Launch and space systems company Rocket Lab delivered the twin ESCAPADE ("Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers") spacecraft to NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Monday (Sept. 22).

The twin probes, named Blue and Gold, are designed to study Mars' atmosphere. The spacecraft will now be inspected and tested ahead of integration with the 322-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn rocket in preparation for launch, which is scheduled to occur no earlier than this fall.

The $80 million mission is part of NASA's Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) program, which targets high-value science while operating on tighter budgets and shorter timelines.

Blue and Gold will enter elliptical orbits around Mars to study how the planet interacts with the solar wind and also how the planet's atmosphere is stripped away by solar wind and space weather effects. They carry magnetometers, to measure magnetic fields, electrostatic analyzers to detect ions and electrons, and Langmuir probes for measuring key parameters of plasma.

California-based Rocket Lab designed and developed the spacecraft over a 3.5-year period, based on the company's interplanetary Explorer spacecraft platform.

"Delivering two interplanetary spacecraft on schedule and within budget for a Mars mission is no small feat, and it speaks to the determination and agility of our team. They've proven that we can take a concept from design to Mars readiness in just a few short years," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said in a statement.

The mission will be the second flight of the powerful New Glenn rocket, which reached orbit on its debut flight in January of this year. Notably, this mission is taking place outside of the traditional Hohmann transfer windows for Mars, which open for a few weeks every 26 months and are the most energy-efficient times for launch. Instead, New Glenn will send the ESCAPADE probes on a longer, 22-month cruise phase to Mars, meaning they are scheduled to arrive at the Red Planet in the second half of 2027.

Launch will take place at New Glenn's pad at Space Launch Complex-36, located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida. The University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory will take over management of the mission for NASA once the ESCAPADE probes are in space.

The NASA moon robot, whose name is short for "Volatiles Investigating Polar Explorer Rover," will hitch a ride to the lunar surface with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin in late 2027, agency officials announced this afternoon.

"NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging U.S. industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface," acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy said in a statement today.

The VIPER mission took shape as an envisioned key piece of NASA's Artemis program, which seeks to establish a long-term, sustainable human presence on and around the moon by 2030 or so.

That presence will be centered on the moon's south polar region, which is thought to harbor lots of water ice. VIPER was designed to vet the abundance and accessibility of this important resource, which can be used for life support as well as be split it into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms to make rocket fuel.

VIPER was originally supposed to land on the moon in late 2023 aboard Griffin, a lander built by Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic; Astrobotic signed a contract to this effect with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

But delays with both Griffin and VIPER pushed the target date back multiple times. Then, in July 2024, NASA announced it was canceling the over-budget mission, even though the car-sized rover was already fully assembled. Doing so would save about $84 million, according to the agency, which had spent roughly $450 million on the mission to that point.

NASA also said it planned to solicit offers from private companies, to see if any wanted to team up to get VIPER to the moon (and take on some of the cost). If that didn't work out, the agency said engineers would take VIPER apart and put its key instruments on other moon robots going forward.

This past May, however, NASA announced it was putting the brakes on that industry partnership search, saying that it would "announce a new strategy for VIPER in the future."

We learned that new strategy today: It's a new CLPS deal with Blue Origin,with a total potential value of $190 million. The company will fulfill this goal using its robotic Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, which is slated to debut later this year on another NASA CLPS mission to the lunar south pole.

"NASA is committed to studying and exploring the moon, including learning more about water on the lunar surface, to help determine how we can harness local resources for future human exploration," Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in today's statement.

"We've been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals," she added. "This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly — supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable."

If all goes according to plan, VIPER will touch down near the moon's south pole and hunt for water ice in the area for about 100 Earth days. NASA will be in charge of these science operations; Blue Origin is responsible for the landing mission architecture, integration of VIPER into Blue Moon and deployment of the rover onto the lunar surface. The CLPS contract does not cover the mission's launch.

Blue Origin launched its 35th New Shepard suborbital mission this morning (Sept. 18) after a nearly four-week delay.

The uncrewed flight, known as NS-35, lifted off today from Blue Origin's West Texas site at 9:01 a.m. EDT (1301 GMT; 8:01 a.m. local Texas time).

Instead of a crew, the Blue Origin capsule carried more than 40 scientific payloads on its suborbital flight, including 24 payloads from the NASA TechRise Student Challenge, which empowers teams of 6th-12th graders to design, build and launch experiments on NASA supported test flights.

New Shepard consists of a first-stage rocket and a capsule, both of which are reusable. Flights of the vehicle get above the Kármán Line — the widely recognized boundary where space begins, at 62 miles up (100 kilometers) — and last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown.

After a successful launch, the New Shepard booster descended for a safe landing 2 miles downrange of the launch pad about 7.5 minutes after liftoff. The capsule descended under parachutes for a touchdown at T+10:15.

NS-35 was originally supposed to fly on Aug. 23, but Blue Origin stood down from that attempt to work an issue with the booster's avionics. The company tried again on Aug. 26 but scrubbed for the same reason. Today's attempt will be the first since then.

More than 40 scientific payloads will take flight on NS-35, bringing the total number of payloads lofted by New Shepard to date over 200, according to the company.

"The payload manifest includes 24 experiments from NASA's TechRise Student Challenge, along with thousands of postcards on behalf of Club for the Future, Blue Origin's STEAM-focused nonprofit," Blue Origin wrote in an NS-35 mission description. (STEAM stands for "science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics.")

New Shepard also conducts crewed flights; indeed, 14 of its 34 missions to date have carried people to the final frontier.

The most recent such jaunt, NS-34, launched crypto billionaire Justin Sun and five other people from West Texas on Aug. 3. Blue Origin has also flown a number of celebrities, including singer Katy Perry and "Star Trek" actor William Shatner.

Blue Origin, which launches brief suborbital missions for astronauts and cargo using its New Shepard rocket and is expanding into deep space launches with its New Glenn rocket, is one of the contractors selected. The other is Anduril Industries, which builds autonomous systems such as uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) as a defense-technology contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense.

Blue Origin received $1.3 million and Anduril $1 million in August under an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) program, manager Daniel Brown told SpaceNews in a statement published Sunday (Sept. 7). The program is called Rocket Experimentation for Global Agile Logistics (REGAL), and news about the awards first broke in late August in outlets such as TechCrunch.

Brown added Blue's award would examine how to alter its space vehicles for point-to-point transport. Blue did not comment on the award on X, but posted on Aug. 6 about a visit by Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Purdy. Purdy has numerous positions in the Air Force, including acting assistant secretary and service acquisition executive for space.

Anduril's award, Brown said, will be for "design and analysis to integrate multiple potential government payloads into a rocket cargo delivery container, or re-entry system." Anduril also did not post about REGAL, but an August press release from the company highlighted its ability to build solid rocket motors.

REGAL aims to use rockets as point-to-point space transportation for the newly renamed Department of Defense (DoD), now called the Department of War.

The program will be to "deliver DoD cargo anywhere on the planet in less than one hour through service-type contracts, similar to agreements DoD uses today with commercial airlines," a procurement description published in 2021 states. Some of the expected uses include "emergency resupply to restore loss of mission capability, humanitarian relief [and] disaster relief," the description adds.

AFRL chose to undertake the program after key changes in American private launch services in recent decades, contracting opportunity documents state: "The U.S. commercial market is building the largest rockets ever, at the lowest prices per pound ever, and with second stages able [to] reenter the atmosphere and be recovered for multiple uses. These advances in the U.S. commercial launch market fueled a new assessment of point-to-point space transportation for DoD logistics."

The REGAL award is a first for Blue Origin and Anduril, SpaceNews reported, although space companies have received similar ones before: Sierra Space received an award in October 2024, and Rocket Lab in May 2025. Blue Origin also signed a 2021 cooperative agreement with U.S. Transportation Command concerning "rocket-powered logistics," SpaceNews added.

Other point-to-point shipment contracts are being studied by the military. For example, Sierra — developing an uncrewed Dream Chaser spacecraft for International Space Station cargo missions — also signed an agreement with DoD transportation command in 2022.

Blue Origin, founded by Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, has completed 34 crewed or uncrewed missions to space. The 35th launch, a transportation effort, was postponed several times in August — most recently due to an avionics issue.

Blue Origin, the private spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, will attempt to launch an uncrewed rocket on a science mission at date still yet to be determined. When it happens, you'll be able to watch it live online.

The company's reusable New Shepard rocket will launch a set of experiments into suborbital space from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. The company stood down from an initial attempt on Saturday (Aug. 23), which was thwarted by a technical issue. "The team encountered an issue related to the booster's avionics," Blue Origin officials announced on social media at the time. A second attempt on Aug. 26 was also canceled due to the same issue, the company wrote on a mission description.

The Blue Origin launch, called NS-35, will send the company's 200th payload above the Kármán line on this uncrewed suborbital flight, which will include experiments and research designed by students, teachers and university teams. When ready, the NS-35 flight, will lift off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. A live webcast of the entire 10-minute spaceflight is planned to start 15 minutes before the launch. You can watch it live on BlueOrigin.com; Space.com will simulcast the stream, if Blue Origin makes it available.

"RSS H.G. Wells," Blue Origin's first New Shepard capsule devoted to carrying only payloads (rather than people), will fly the NS-35 mission. Both the cabin and its booster are planned to be recovered, with the latter making a propulsive landing on a concrete pad near its launch site and the former descending back to Earth under parachutes.

Among the NS-35 payloads are two dozen experiments that were chosen as part of NASA and Future Engineers' TechRise Student Challenge, including studies into cultivating plants in microgravity, the physics of liquids and medical research.

Other investigations on NS-35 were designed by educators as part of the Teachers in Space program. Their payloads will collect data on sound levels generated during the flight, radiation levels and the environmental conditions aboard the capsule.

Additional experiments on board are flying for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Oklahoma State University, the University of Florida, University of Central Florida, Teledyne and Space Lab Technologies.

Carthage College in Wisconsin will test new methods for gauging propellant levels in space, while a Teledyne payload, developed with NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, will test the a spacecraft fuel cell system before its possible use on moon and Mars missions.

A clutch of 432 sensors will record the effects of being coated with a new type of chemical coating, and a modified FLEX fluorescence imaging system previously tested aboard the International Space Station will make its first suborbital journey on NS-35.

As on all of Blue Origin's New Shepard flights, crewed or uncrewed, the company is also carrying postcards on behalf of its not-for-profit organization, "Club For the Future." The cards will be stamped after the flight as having reached space and then returned to the students and others who decorated their fronts.

NS-35 will be Blue Origin's 5th flight by the H.G. Wells capsule and 21st uncrewed New Shepard mission.

Editor's note: This article, originally posted on Aug. 22, was updated on Aug. 25 and again on Aug. 26 to reflect delays to Blue Origin's NS-35 New Shepard mission.

The company says it has been working closely with NASA on preparations leading up to New Glenn's next launch, dubbed NG-2, and is targeting no earlier than (NET) Sep. 29. The twin ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) probes have been awaiting their turn aboard New Glenn, which was originally slated to carry the satellites on its maiden launch in January. However, NASA opted not to risk a costly mission delay due to the debut liftoff of the new rocket.

Now that the mission has been assigned a NET date, Blue Origin posted on social media to expect "some exciting things" buzzing around New Glenn's pad at Space Launch Complex-36, located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.

New Glenn lifted off for the first time in the beginning of 2025. Blue Origin successfully launched a test version of its Blue Ring satellite bus to Earth orbit, but failed in the attempt to land New Glenn's first stage at sea. In addition to launching its NASA payload into an interplanetary trajectory, Blue Origin will once again try to land and recover New Glenn's 188.5-foot-tall (57.5-meter-tall) first stage booster on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

ESCAPADE will be New Glenn's first interplanetary mission, an ambitious undertaking for the relatively new launch vehicle. The twin orbiters will study the magnetosphere around the Red Planet as well as analyze the processes that control the interaction of energetic solar wind particles and the Martian atmosphere.

The twin NASA satellites were built by California-based Rocket Lab. Once in space, their operation will be handed over to the University of California's Space Sciences Laboratory, tasked with managing the $80 million mission for the space agency.

New Glenn will also carry a secondary payload as a part of the NG-2 launch. A technology demonstration from satellite communications company Viasat will be flown as well in support of NASA's Communications Services Project, which partners with the commercial sector to advance developments concerning in-space networking for near-Earth satellites.

The agency recently awarded a total of $1.4 million to the group, which includes companies like Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and Rocket Lab. The goal is to eventually send various sizes and types of spacecraft to a variety of destinations in the final frontier, using orbital transfer vehicles.

Orbital transfer vehicles launch atop rockets, carrying other spacecraft that they deliver to specific, often hard-to-reach, orbits. The new early-stage studies for NASA should be complete by mid-September.

NASA will use the work to potentially bring "risk-tolerant payloads" to space, the agency stated on Tuesday (Aug. 5), "with a possibility of expanding delivery services to larger-sized payloads and to less risk-tolerant missions in the future." The agency also has a long-term goal to send more missions to the moon and Mars in a cost-efficient way.

Spacecraft have limited fuel on board, often making it difficult for them to change orbits on their own. Rockets also have difficulty in carrying spacecraft far afield, as most of their fuel is burned on liftoff alone. Hence the utility of an orbital transfer vehicle, which is designed to take a satellite, or a series of satellites, away from the rocket and to another orbit.

NASA officials stated that a multi-orbit approach is needed as the pace of commercial space delivery increases, especially when several spacecraft or orbits are required for a single mission.

The new awards "will increase unique science capability and lower the agency's overall mission costs," Joe Dant, orbital transfer vehicle strategic initiative owner for the launch services program at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said in the same statement.

The six companies are collectively working on nine early-stage studies for orbital transfer vehicles. Here's a quick rundown:

• Awardee Arrow Science and Technology will partner with a non-awardee, Quantum Space. The study will examine Quantum's Ranger for payload delivery "for missions from low Earth orbit to lunar orbit," NASA stated.
• Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will conduct two studies. The first is designed for the Blue Ring platform, which can use hybrid solar-electric and chemical propulsion for orbits ranging from geostationary to cislunar (near-moon) to Mars to interplanetary locations. The second study will examine an upper stage for New Glenn, Blue's heavy-lift orbital rocket.
• Firefly Aerospace will study use of its Elytra orbital vehicles for transfer to lunar orbit operations, or applications in cislunar space such as imaging, payload delivery or domain awareness.
• Impulse Space will perform two studies. These will involve two vehicles, called Mira and Helios. Mira is described as a "highly maneuverable spacecraft" for payload hosting and deployment, and Helios is a kick stage able to move from low Earth orbit to medium Earth orbit, geostationary orbit or further destinations.
• Rocket Lab will conduct two studies — one for its powerful new Neutron rocket, and one for an orbital transfer vehicle based on its Explorer spacecraft. These vehicles can collectively reach orbits including medium Earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit, or faraway destinations such as the moon, Mars or asteroids.
• United Launch Alliance will perform a study on its Centaur V upper stage, with the aim of creating rideshare missions to cislunar space. Centaur V is used both on the retiring Atlas V rocket line, as well as the newer Vulcan Centaur rockets.

Blue Origin wants to support NASA's Mars plans during the 2028 planetary alignment launch window.

The company has announced plans for a Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO), a new spacecraft designed to establish a multi-relay hub for continuous communications between Earth and Mars.

The MTO, which Blue Origin says could lift off by 2028, is designed to deliver much higher bandwidth to Red Planet spacecraft. It could aid robotic missions on the Martian surface and in orbit, as well as future human exploration of the Red Planet, according to the company.

NASA's long-term Mars plans — including sample return and eventual crewed missions — will require robust relay infrastructure to maintain pace with the agency's aging Martian fleet.

Currently, most data from Mars is communicated through orbiters such as NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) and the European Space Agency's (ESA) Trace Gas Orbiter. When these spacecraft are eventually powered down, whether due to hardware degradation, mission reprioritization, or budgetary decisions, Mars assets will be left without a reliable communications network. MTO is pitched as a potential commercial option to fill that gap.

MTO will operate several "steerable high-rate links supported by a broad beam that offers wide-area coverage," Blue Origin said in a statement. The spacecraft will also augment its abilities through deployable ultrahigh frequency (UHF) relay satellites in low Mars orbit for "legacy assets and future entry, descent and landing demonstrations," the company added.

The spacecraft is built on Blue Origin's Blue Ring modular satellite bus — an advanced orbiter with independent processing, storage and A.I. capabilities, and the ability to support over a dozen payloads across multiple ports. MTO will operate using a hybrid thruster system, harnessing electric and chemical propulsion to expand its maneuvering capabilities and mission longevity, according to Blue Origin.

"Our orbiter's hybrid propulsion, maneuvering capability, and capacity greatly expand the windows to get to the Red Planet," Blue Origin said in a post on X.

The orbiter's design also incorporates technologies from the company's Mars Next-Generation Relay concept and Mars Sample Return (MSR) proposals for commercial options for NASA's communication infrastructure.

MSR is the agency's plan to haul home to Earth material gathered on the Red Planet by the Perseverance rover. NASA has been aiming to launch key MSR hardware in 2028, but that plan is in serious doubt due to delays and budget concerns. (Mars and Earth align for interplanetary launches just once every 26 months. The next two such windows come in 2026 and 2028).

NASA has not announced a contract award for MTO, and the spacecraft remains a proposal within Blue Origin's portfolio of planetary mission spacecraft concepts.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launched a crypto billionaire and five other people to the final frontier on Sunday (Aug. 3).

The mission — known as NS-34, because it was the 34th overall flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle — lifted off from the company's West Texas spaceport at 8:43 a.m. EDT (1243 GMT; 7:43 a.m. local time in West Texas).

The highest-profile NS-34 passenger was Justin Sun, a 34-year-old billionaire who founded the blockchain platform Tron. In June 2021, Sun won an auction for a seat aboard the first-ever crewed flight of New Shepard, plunking down $28 million. (He did so anonymously; we didn't learn that Sun posted the winning bid until December 2021.)

A scheduling conflict kept Sun from joining that landmark flight, which took place on July 20, 2021 — the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The passengers that day were Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.

The people flying with Sun on Sunday were Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, an Indian-born American real estate investor and adventurer; Turkish businessman and photographer Gökhan Erdem; Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico; Englishman Lionel Pitchford, who has run an orphanage in Nepal for three decades; and American entrepreneur James (J.D.) Russell.

"It was an honor to see so many nations represented on our flight today,” Blue Origin's Phil Joyce, senior vice president, New Shepard, said in a postflight statement. "The view of our fragile planet from space has a unifying effect on all who witness it, and I am always eager to see how our astronauts use this experience for the benefit of Earth."

All six passengers were spaceflight rookies except Russell, who flew on Blue Origin's NS-28 mission in November 2024. You can learn more about each of them in our NS-34 "meet the crew" story.

NS-34 was the 14th human spaceflight to date for New Shepard, which consists of a rocket topped by a crew capsule. Both of these elements are reusable; the rocket comes back to Earth for a vertical, powered touchdown like those performed by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets, and the capsule lands softly under parachutes.

Each New Shepard flight lasts 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown. During this brief time, passengers get above the Kármán line — the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) demarcation widely regarded as the point where space begins — and experience a few minutes of weightlessness.

Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices, so we don't how much folks usually pay for a ride. But it's safe to say that it's considerably less than Sun ponied up back in 2021.

That sum was a philanthropic contribution. according to Blue Origin.

"The proceeds from the $28 million bid benefitted 19 space-focused charities to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEAM [science, technology, engineering, art and math] and help shape the future of life in space," the company wrote in an NS-34 mission description.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 11:20 a.m. ET to include a postflight quote from Phil Joyce.

Jeff Bezos' aerospace company announced on Wednesday (July 30) that it's targeting Sunday (Aug. 3) for the flight, which is called NS-34 because it's the 34th overall mission for Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

NS-34 will lift off from the company's West Texas spaceport, near the town of Van Horn, on Sunday during a window that opens at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT; 7:30 a.m. local Texas time). Blue Origin will stream the action live, starting 30 minutes before launch.

NS-34's passengers are headlined by 34-year-old crypto billionaire Justin Sun, who in June 2021 put down the winning bid — $28 million — in an auction for a seat aboard Blue Origin's first-ever human spaceflight.

Sun couldn't fly on that mission due to scheduling issues. It launched on July 20, 2021 — the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing — with Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen onboard.

Sun's five crewmates on NS-34 are real estate investor and adventurer Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, who was born in India but is now an American citizen; Turkish businessman and photographer Gökhan Erdem; Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico; Englishman Lionel Pitchford, who has run an orphanage in Kathmandu for 30 years; and American entrepreneur James (J.D.) Russell, who also flew on Blue Origin's NS-28 mission in November 2024.

Also on Wednesday, Blue Origin revealed the NS-34 mission patch, which features an element of each passenger's life story. Here's the company's explanation, which you can find on its website:

• The globe symbolizes Arvi Bahal’s passion for travel, including visiting every country in the world, and the North and South Poles. 
• The Bosphorus Strait symbolizes Gökhan Erdem’s Turkish heritage.    
• The shape of Puerto Rico symbolizes Deborah Martorell’s home. 
• Mt. Everest symbolizes Lionel Pitchford’s decades of work in Nepal. 
• The book symbolizes J.D. Russell’s foundation, founded in honor of his deceased daughter, and dedicated to supporting children’s education and assisting first responder families. 
• The banana symbolizes H.E. Justin Sun's passion for conceptual art. 
• The sun in the center symbolizes H.E. Justin Sun, Deborah Martorell’s meteorology background, and new adventures for the whole crew.

Each New Shepard mission lasts 10 to 12 minutes, from liftoff to the parachute-aided touchdown of the vehicle's capsule. (New Shepard's booster also comes back to Earth safely for refurbishment and reuse.)

Passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see Earth against the blackness of space. We don't know what this experience costs (except in rare cases like Sun's); Blue Origin has not revealed its ticket prices.

NS-34 will be Blue Origin's 14th crewed mission to date and its fifth such flight of 2025.

The museum's flagship building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. was on track to have more than 6,000 visitors be among the first to see the returning exhibits, like John Glenn's Mercury capsule "Friendship 7," and all new displays, such as SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket parts, a Blue Origin crew cabin and an immersive 3D-printed Mars habitat.

"Reopening our main hall with so many iconic aerospace artifacts, as well as completely new exhibitions, will give visitors much more to see and enjoy," said Chris Browne, the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the National Air and Space Museum, in a statement. "We are thrilled to open this next phase of exhibitions to the public."

The new galleries are part of a $900 million, full-building overhaul that began in 2018 and is expected to be complete by the museum's 50th anniversary in July 2026. The five galleries that premiered to the public on Monday were the second set of reimagined and relaunched halls to reopen after a similar debut in 2022.

The new experiences began outside the building as its north entrance re-opened to the public for the first time in three years. Located alongside Jefferson Drive, the new entryway features a wing-like vestibule.

From there, the doors led directly into the "Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall," which displays some of the museum's most iconic objects. The hall underwent a restoration in 2014, so the artifacts remain mostly the same, but during its closure, the floor and ceiling were replaced and wall-length screens were added to preview what awaits visitors further into the museum.

Adjacent to "Milestones" is the new "Futures in Space" exhibition, which aims to recapture the visitor experience from when the National Air and Space Museum first opened and the space artifacts on exhibit were still contemporary to the day. Premiering in this gallery are items from the companies and other venues exploring space today, including Virgin Galactic and Axiom Space, as well as SpaceX and Blue Origin.

Rather than organize the displays by program or historic period, "Futures in Space" uses the objects it exhibits to explore the answers to a series of questions, such as: Who decides who goes to space? Why do we go? And what will we do when we get there?

Artwork from the museum's extensive collection and imagery from pop culture references to the future of spaceflight complete the hall, which also includes a stage and seating area for live talks and presentations.

The other galleries that opened to the public on Monday explore aviation history, including the "Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight," "World War I: The Birth of Military Aviation" and the "Allan and Shelley Holt Innovations Gallery." The Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater was also upgraded and is open again.

"We look forward to welcoming many more people into these modernized and inspiring new spaces," said Browne.

Entrance to the National Air and Space Museum remains free, but time entry passes available from the Smithsonian's website are required.

The mission is expected to launch in Spring 2026, and will deliver the Owl sensor to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), before the instrument transitions to operational activities in geostationary orbit (GEO).

Blue Ring is Blue Origin's modular, multi-destination satellite bus, with the ability to support up to 13 payloads across multiple ports. Blue Ring can carry up to 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of mission cargo and is designed for high maneuverability. The spacecraft is capable of launching into a variety of destinations in Earth orbit and can also go to deep space — to the moon and Mars, for example.

The spacecraft will launch on Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, which lifted off for the first time in January 2025. That mission reached orbit with a pathfinder version of Blue Ring meant to validate the spacecraft's mechanics and avionics. The upcoming Owl sensor integration will be the platform's first operational flight.

Blue Ring's 2026 mission aims to demonstrate the spacecraft's capabilities while the onboard Owl sensor supports national security and commercial interests in space situational awareness.

"Integrating Scout’s Owl sensor on this first mission marks a significant step forward in advancing SDA capabilities and underscores our commitment to supporting the nation’s mission requirements," Paul Ebertz, senior vice president of Blue Origin’s In-Space Systems business unit, said in a statement.

The Owl sensor is designed to detect, track and characterize objects in orbit — including satellites, debris and other space flotsam — from long distances to support SDA initiatives. Owl is powered by artificial intelligence to autonomously identify and classify threats or anomalies.

On this mission, the sensor will support the U.S. Space Force's goal to maintain space superiority, according to the Blue Origin release.

The partnership highlights Blue Origin's growing focus on missions in support of national security and U.S. dominance in space amid growing orbital congestion and geopolitical tensions around orbital real estate.

"We've always believed that no single company can bring the best space superiority capabilities to the market alone," Scout Space CEO Philip Hover-Smoot said in the release. "We’re thrilled to work with Blue Origin to bring Scout’s secure solutions onboard this historic first Blue Ring mission."

In June 2021, Sun — the billionaire founder of the blockchain platform Tron — won an auction for a seat aboard Blue Origin's first-ever crewed spaceflight.

That mission launched on July 20 of that year, carrying Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and three other people to and from suborbital space on the company's reusable New Shepard vehicle. Sun was not on board, however; he had to back out due to scheduling conflicts, the company said at the time.

Sun had not identified himself as the winning bidder when that flight lifted off. The big reveal came in December 2021, when the crypto billionaire went public and said he now planned to fly in 2022 with five other "space warriors."

That didn't happen, either. But Sun's long-deferred spaceflight is now just around the corner: He is officially on the manifest for NS-34, New Shepard's next human spaceflight, Blue Origin announced on Monday (July 21). The company has not yet disclosed a target launch date for the flight but is expected to do so soon.

Here's a brief profile of the 34-year-old Sun and his five NS-34 crewmates, using information provided by Blue Origin.

• Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal, a real estate investor and adventurer who was born in India but is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He has visited every country in the world, as well as both the north and south poles.
• Gökhan Erdem, a Turkish businessman, photographer and space enthusiast who "dreams of one day traveling to the International Space Station and possibly even beyond," Blue Origin wrote.
• Deborah Martorell, a journalist and meteorologist from Puerto Rico who has taken a microgravity-inducing airplane flight and reported on a number of space missions, including NASA's Artemis 1 moon flight. She's also a Solar System Ambassador for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• Lionel Pitchford, an Englishman who has long lived in Spain and traveled the world. After losing his sister and her family in a 1992 plane crash in Nepal, he founded a nonprofit in the nation devoted to helping disadvantaged children. Pitchford has also run an orphanage in Kathmandu for the last 30 years.
• James (J.D.) Russell, an entrepreneur who founded the venture capital firm Alpha Funds. He also established the Victoria Russell Foundation, a nonprofit that honors the memory of his deceased daughter by "supporting children's education and assisting the families of first responders," Blue Origin wrote. Unlike the other NS-34 passengers, Russell is not a spaceflight rookie; he flew on the NS-28 mission in November 2024.
• Justin Sun, who is worth about $8.5 billion, according to Forbes. In addition to his Tron work, Sun is the ambassador and former Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization and serves as an advisor to the HTX crypto exchange. "A protege of Alibaba's Jack Ma, Sun was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine in April 2025, where he was recognized as one of the most dynamic and outspoken figures in crypto and earning the moniker 'Crypto's Billionaire Barker' for his bold approach to innovation, advocacy and industry leadership," Blue Origin wrote. Sun's winning $28 million bid for the New Shepard seat in 2021 was donated to Club for the Future, Blue Origin's education nonprofit.

NS-34 will be the 14th crewed New Shepard flight to date, and the fifth such mission of 2025. The most recent, NS-33, lifted off on June 29.

New Shepard missions fly from Blue Origin's launch site in West Texas, near the town of Van Horn. Each one lasts 10 to 12 minutes from launch to the parachute-aided touchdown of the New Shepard crew capsule. (New Shepard's rocket also comes back down to Earth for a safe landing and eventual reuse.)

New Shepard is an autonomous vehicle, so the passengers can sit back and simply enjoy the flight. That experience includes a few minutes of weightlessness and great views of Earth against the blackness of space, from an altitude of more than 62 miles (100 kilometers).

The twin ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) Mars probes had been scheduled to launch last October, on the first-ever flight of Blue Origin's huge, partially reusable New Glenn rocket.

But NASA took the two spacecraft off that flight in September, citing the possibility of a cost-increasing launch delay. That delay did in fact come to pass; New Glenn ended up debuting on Jan. 15, successfully carrying a test version of Blue Origin's Blue Ring spacecraft platform to Earth orbit. The company aimed to land New Glenn's first stage on a ship at sea as well but failed in the attempt.

The ESCAPADE mission, meanwhile, continued in its state of limbo, without a publicly announced launch date.

But that has now been cleared up. On Thursday (July 17), Blue Origin announced that ESCAPADE will launch the second-ever flight of New Glenn, which is targeted for no earlier than Aug. 15 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

That's later than the company had originally planned; Blue Origin had been eyeing late spring for the flight, known as NG-2, but pushed it back last month.

"This will be an exciting mission for New Glenn and Mars exploration. ESCAPADE is not only New Glenn’s first interplanetary mission, it’s also the first multi-spacecraft orbital science mission to study the Martian magnetosphere. And, we hope to land and recover our booster for the first time. Mars, here we come. Thank you to @NASA for riding with us to space," Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said via X on Thursday.

ESCAPADE won't be the only payload flying on NG-2; the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn will also carry a technology demonstration for satellite-communications company Viasat, according to Blue Origin.

The two ESCAPADE probes were built by California-based company Rocket Lab. They're known as Blue and Gold, the colors of the University of California, Berkeley, whose Space Sciences Laboratory will manage the $80 million mission for NASA.

That mission "will analyze how Mars’ magnetic field guides particle flows around the planet, how energy and momentum are transported from the solar wind through the magnetosphere, and what processes control the flow of energy and matter into and out of the Martian atmosphere," NASA wrote in a description of ESCAPADE.

"The observations will reveal the planet’s real-time response to space weather and how the Martian magnetosphere changes over time," they added.

American companies launched 21 commercial space missions in June 2025, which was a new record for a single month, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The old record of 20 was set in November 2024.

"Operations during the record month include 21 launches conducted by four operators: Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance," FAA officials said in an emailed statement.

"These occurred in California, Florida, Texas and New Zealand, and involved orbital, suborbital and commercial human spaceflight missions," they added. (California-based Rocket Lab's primary launch site is on New Zealand's North Island.)

SpaceX was by far the busiest of the four operators, launching 15 of the month's 21 missions. Twelve of those 15 flights were devoted to building out the company's Starlink broadband megaconstellation in low Earth orbit.

June continued a very active 2025 for SpaceX, which has launched 81 missions so far this year. The company is therefore on pace to break its single-year record of 134 orbital liftoffs, which was set in 2024. (Those numbers don't count the suborbital test flights of SpaceX's new Starship megarocket, which launched four times in 2024 and has flown three times so far this year.)

SpaceX was also responsible for one of June's two human spaceflight missions — Ax-4, which sent four private astronauts toward the International Space Station on June 25.

The month's other crewed mission was NS-33, a suborbital tourist flight by Blue Origin that launched and landed on June 29.

Blue Origin sent its 70th person into space today (June 29) on its 13th rocket flight to carry passengers.

The company's New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle lifted off Saturday at 9:39 a.m. CDT (10:39 a.m. EDT or 1439 GMT) from its Launch Site One in West Texas. On board were husband and wife Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno, Jr., Owolabi Salis and James Sitkin.

Carl Kuehner became Blue Origin's astronaut number 70, which based on prior precedent, was determined by the seat on board the New Shepard capsule that he assigned for the flight. He also became the 750th person in history to reach space, as recorded by the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Space Travelers.

The 10-minute NS-33 mission — numbered such as this was Blue Origin's 33rd New Shepard flight overall — went to plan, with both the propulsion module (Tail 5) making a safe vertical landing and the crew capsule, named "RSS Kármán Line," returning the passengers to a parachute-slowed, air thruster-cushioned touchdown not far from where they launched.

For about three minutes as the gumdrop-shaped capsule reached its apogee, or highest point away from Earth, the Kuehners, Larson, Rescigno, Salis and Sitkin experienced weightlessness and saw the curvature of the planet set against the stark blackness of space.

The flight reached a 345,044 feet (105.2 km) above the ground, surpassing the Kármán Line, the internationally-accepted boundary between Earth and space at 62 miles high (100 kilometers).

Flying along with the crew were more than 1,000 physical and digital postcards designed by students and the public, as collected by The Museum of Flight in Seattle and Parkcrest Elementary in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The cards are part of an on going project by Blue Origin's non-profit organization Club For the Future.

As with all New Shepard fights, the cost per seat on NS-33 was not disclosed. The passengers included an environmentalist, the chairman of a real estate development firm, the former CEO of a public transportation company, an electrical wire and cable distributor, and two attorneys.

The six NS-33 passengers dubbed themselves "The Solstice 33," as they were originally scheduled to launch on the summer solstice (June 21) but were delayed by poor weather conditions. Their flight brought the total number of people who have flown on suborbital flights to 123, according to the Association of Space Explorers.

UPDATE for 11 a.m. ET: Blue Origin has successfully launched 6 passengers to space an back on NS-33. See our full wrap story on the launch, photos and video.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin plans to launch six people to suborbital space Sunday, after a round of weather delays last weekend.

The mission — known as NS-33, because it will be the 33rd overall flight of the company's New Shepard vehicle — was originally scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas site on Saturday (June 21) morning. But Mother Nature didn't cooperate; high winds forced a scrub. The launch was then targeted for Sunday at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT; 7:30 a.m. local Texas time). But the weather didn't cooperate again.

Now, Blue Origin has set a new liftoff target for Sunday, June 29, at 10:38 a.m. EDT (1438 GMT; 9:38 a.m. local Texas time).

New Shepard is an autonomous, fully reusable vehicle that consists of a first-stage booster and a crew capsule. Its flights last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule touchdown; passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see Earth against the blackness of space.

The people going up on the NS-33 mission are Allie and Carl Kuehner, a husband and wife who are both into conservation and exploration; philanthropist and beekeeper Leland Larson; entrepreneur Freddie Rescigno, Jr.; lawyer and author Owolabi Salis; and retired attorney Jim Sitkin.

You can learn more about each of them in our NS-33 crew reveal story.

NS-33 will be Blue Origin's 13th human spaceflight mission overall and its fourth of 2025 so far. (Most of the company's flights have been uncrewed research missions.)

The company first launched people to the final frontier on July 20, 2021, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Bezos and his brother Mark went up on that landmark New Shepard flight, along with aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:00 a.m. EDT on June 28 with the new launch date announced by Blue Origin.

NS-33 will be Blue Origin's 13th crewed launch to date, and the fifth New Shepard launch of 2025. The mission will carry six passengers to the edge of space, where they will experience several minutes of weightlessness before their capsule parachutes back down to terra firma.

The crew includes Allie and Carl Kuehner, Leland Larson, Freddie Rescigno, Jr., Owolabi Salis, and James Sitkin. Here's a bit of background on each of them.

The NS-33 mission is scheduled to lift off from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas, on Saturday during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). A livestream of the launch will be available on Space.com beginning 30 minutes before liftoff, as well as on Blue Origin's website.

That six-passenger suborbital flight will lift off from the company's West Texas launch site, on a date that hasn't been announced yet.

The upcoming mission is known as NS-33, because it will be the 33rd overall launch of Blue Origin's reusable, autonomous New Shepard vehicle. It will be the company's 13th human spaceflight mission.

Here's a brief rundown of the six NS-33 passengers, using information provided by Blue Origin.

• Allie Kuehner, an environmentalist, adventurer and explorer who serves on the board of the conservation nonprofit Nature is Nonpartisan.
• Carl Kuehner, Allie's husband and a conservationist as well. He serves as chairman of Building and Land Technology, a real estate firm "dedicated to building communities and ecosystems that promote long-term growth and sustainability," according to Blue Origin.
• Leland Larson, a philanthropist, gardener and beekeeper who previously led School Bus Services, Inc. and Larson Transportation Services, both of them family-owned Oregon businesses.
• Freddie Rescigno, Jr., the founder, president and CEO of the wire and cable company Commodity Cables. He's also a competitive golfer.
• Owolabi Salis, a financial consultant and lawyer who wrote the book "Equitocracy." Salis "is also a key member of The Soul Maker Ministry, which preaches diversity given the diverse nature of the universe," Blue Origin wrote. "He is dedicating this mission to victims of discrimination and civil rights violations."
• Jim Sitkin, a retired attorney and lifelong adventurer who currently volunteers for a non-governmental organization that works with government and community leaders in Central Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

New Shepard flights last 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff to the touchdown of the vehicle's crew capsule. (New Shepard's first-stage booster also comes back to Earth for a safe landing and eventual reuse).

During this brief time, New Shepard passengers get to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the curve of Earth against the blackness of space.

Blue Origin's first crewed mission was in July 2021, a flight that included Bezos and his brother Mark. NS-33 will be the company's fourth human spaceflight of 2025.

Jeff Bezos' aerospace company had been targeting late spring for the second launch of the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn, which features a reusable first stage. But that's no longer the plan.

"New Glenn's second mission will take place NET [no earlier than] August 15th," Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said via X on Monday (June 9).

"Following in the footsteps of our first booster, we've chosen the name 'Never Tell Me The Odds' for Tail 2," he added in the post. "One of our key mission objectives will be to land and recover the booster. This will take a little bit of luck and a lot of excellent execution. We're on track to produce eight GS2s this year, and the one we'll fly on this second mission was hot-fired in April. Gradatim Ferociter!"

The first New Glenn booster was named "So You're Telling Me There's a Chance," a line from the 1994 Jim Carrey movie "Dumb and Dumber."

The "chance" Blue Origin was referring to was the possibility that the booster would land safely on the company's drone ship shortly after its Jan. 16 launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. That didn't happen, but the rest of that debut flight went well: New Glenn successfully carried its payload — a test version of Blue Origin's new Blue Ring spacecraft platform — to Earth orbit.

The GS2s that Limp mentioned are New Glenn upper stages. And the number he cited is meaningful; the company has previously said that it planned to launch eight New Glenn missions this year — a target that is almost certainly out of reach at this point, as Ars Technica's Eric Berger noted.

"Gradatim ferociter," by the way, is Blue Origin's motto. It's Latin for "Step by step, ferociously."

Limp's X post didn't give a reason for the delay to Aug. 15. And the company still hasn't announced what New Glenn — which can haul 50 tons (45 metric tons) of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO) — will carry on the test flight.

In February, during a talk at the 27th Annual Commercial Space Conference in Washington, Limp said that Blue Origin was "still looking for opportunities."

"If it came to it and we just had to fly a mass simulator, we'll fly a mass simulator," he said at the time.

One newly unveiled key element is the "Transporter," a vehicle that can be launched on a single Blue Origin New Glenn rocket into low Earth orbit. It will harvest leftover propellant from the booster's second stage and then haul the hydrogen and oxygen to lunar orbit.

Transporter is designed to lug roughly 110 tons (100 metric tons) from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. And in Mars mode, it will be able to haul 33 tons (30 metric tons) into orbit around the Red Planet.

Making its mark

Blue Origin is also busily developing a robotic lander called Mark 1, as well as a Mark 2 version able to land up to four astronauts on the moon, either to equatorial or polar sites, depending on NASA requirements. A Mark 2 cargo-toting version has also been scoped out.

Mark 1 is capable of landing up to 3.3 tons (3 metric tons) on the moon. The larger Mark 2 vehicle can land up to 22 tons (20 metric tons) in a reusable configuration, or up to 33 tons (30 metric tons) in a one-way configuration, making it brawny enough to deliver habit modules to the lunar surface.

The Mark 2 lander is being developed under NASA's NextSTEP-2 Appendix P Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) contract.

Hardware rich

John Couluris, senior vice president of lunar permanence for Blue Origin, detailed the company's plans during a Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) meeting held from May 20 to May 22 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

If we can open up the moon, Couluris said, it will become "our eventual hub for the rest of the solar system."

The pace of Blue Origin work on lunar hardware is palpable.

Couluris said Blue Origin is moving forward on becoming "hardware rich," with the firm's target to get the production line moving — to support reliable access to the moon in a low-cost manner.

Serial number one of the Mark 1 lunar lander, for example, is scheduled to fly to the moon's south pole for the first time this year.

If successful, Mark 1 would be the largest lander ever to touch down on the moon. Blue Origin is working with NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to outfit that first craft with the space agency's Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) system, which will gauge the effects of the lander's engine plume on the dusty, rock-strewn lunar surface.

"We are currently building two of these vehicles," Couluris said, "to get hardware rich."

First moonshot

Couluris underscored a key challenge that Blue Origin is working on — figuring out a way to make hydrogen and oxygen storable for appreciable lengths of time. These are the propellants for Blue Origin's BE engine line, which powers the Mark 1 and Mark 2 landers and the Transporter.

Success in this area would therefore be huge, Couluris said.

"This opens up the solar system," making the moon a kind of JFK airport, according to Couluris.

And Blue Origin is making serious progress on its lander propulsion system, he added.

"The build of this engine that's going to power our first Mark 1 is almost complete and will be integrated into the vehicle probably late summer," said Couluris.

At Blue Origin's facility in Washington state, the zero-boil-off technology is advancing, already demonstrated to work at temperatures of 20 Kelvin (minus 424 degrees Fahrenheit) and 90 Kelvin (minus 298 F) in the lab.

"We're making our first moonshot this year," said Jacqueline Cortese, senior director of civil space at Blue Origin. "Prior to the end of this decade, we will be landing two crews on the lunar surface" in partnership with NASA's Artemis program, she added.

Blue Origin self-funded the Mark 1. No government resources went into the vehicle, Cortese told the LSIC audience. "Ideally, we will have a successful first mission of Mark 1, then incorporate any findings and be ready to fly again," she said.

The Mark 1 will not only be the largest lander to ever touch down on the moon but also the only liquid oxygen/hydrogen-fueled lander to do so, Cortese said.

"So, please keep your fingers, toes — anything — crossed for a successful first Mark 1 mission this year," she said. "It's been a long time coming for a lot of people at Blue Origin."

Reinvent traditional aerospace

The moon is a stepping stone to Mars, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said at the 2025 Humans to the Moon and Mars Summit (H2M2), hosted by Explore Mars, Inc. and held May 28 to May 29 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

"If we're going to get to Mars, the path to that is getting back to the moon, and in a permanent way," Limp said.

Limp also spotlighted Blue Origin's work on zero-boil-off technology and the firm's Transporter tanker. Lab demonstrations are "coming along really well," with the firm's first prototype cryo-cooler coming online in the next couple of months.

"I'm very optimistic that this is going to be a solved problem in the next year or two," said Limp.

Blue Origin is steadfast in its desire to dramatically lower the price of launching material from Earth, Limp said. And doing so means innovation by commercial companies, he added.

"We want to reinvent traditional aerospace," said Limp. "We want to go faster. We want to be more decisive. We want to do it in a more cost-effective way. You can't use the traditional aerospace playbook and do all those things."

Driving demand

Of similar view is Brian Ippolitto, senior director of operations at Marotta Controls, an innovative aerospace and defense company.

"Commercial space leaders are actively positioning themselves at the forefront of cislunar and lunar development," Ippolitto told Space.com.

"As they continue to design and build platforms capable of operating beyond low Earth orbit, they are driving demand for more advanced and reliable components that can endure the extreme conditions of deep space," said Ippolitto.

Among the most significant challenges ahead, Ippolitto pointed out, "are the requirements for colder operating temperatures and longer-duration missions — both critical to the success of sustained lunar presence."

Three world travelers, two Space Camp alums and an aerospace executive whose last name aptly matched their shared adventure traveled into space and back today (May 31), becoming the latest six people to fly with Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

Mark Rocket joined Jaime Alemán, Jesse Williams, Paul Jeris, Gretchen Green and Amy Medina Jorge on board the RSS First Step — Blue Origin's first of two human-rated New Shepard capsules — for a trip above the Kármán Line, the 62-mile-high (100-kilometer) internationally recognized boundary between Earth and space.

For about three minutes, the six NS-32 crewmates experienced weightlessness and had an astronaut's-eye view of the planet.

"It was perfection," said Green soon after returning to Earth. "There are not a lot of times in your life when most of the time you're just doing your best, struggling through the hard times, enjoying the good ones, but there are very few things in life that were true perfection. And when I looked out at space and back down to the Earth, [it] was perfect."

The New Shepard launch vehicle — which included the capsule and a propulsion module, both of which are reusable — lifted off today at 8:39 a.m. CDT (9:39 a.m. EDT or 1339 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One near Van Horn in West Texas. About two and a half minutes into the flight, the booster cut off its engine and then separated, allowing the capsule to continue its coast upward into space and for it to return to Earth to make a propulsive, vertical landing on a concrete pad not far from where it launched.

The six NS-32 passengers, self-dubbed "The Pathfinders," meanwhile, reached an apogee, or maximum altitude, of 340,290 feet (104 km) above the ground, qualifying Rocket, Alemán, Williams, Jeris, Green and Jorge for Blue Origin-issued astronaut wings and their entry in the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Worldwide Space Travelers.

The RSS First Step then descended back to Earth, using parachutes and a last-second jet of compressed air to make a soft touchdown about 10 minutes after it left Earth. Blue Origin personnel were soon on hand to inspect the vehicle, open the hatch and welcome the NS-32 crewmates home.

Mark Rocket became the first New Zealander to reach space on the mission. His connection to aerospace goes beyond his apt name and today's flight; he's currently the CEO of Kea Aerospace and previously helped lead Rocket Lab, a competing space launch company to Blue Origin that sends most of its rockets up from New Zealand.

Alemán, Williams and Jeris each traveled the world extensively before briefly leaving the planet today. An attorney from Panama, Alemán is now the first person to have visited all 193 countries recognized by the United Nations, traveled to the North and South Poles, and now, have been into space.

"It was such an incredible ride," said Alemán. "Very moving, very spiritual, even better than I ever imagined. For me, as someone who has been traveling — thank you to the gods — all my life, it is like a cherry on top of a cake."

For Williams, an entrepreneur from Canada, Saturday's flight continued his record of achieving high altitudes; he has summitted Mt. Everest and five of the other six other highest mountains across the globe. Jeris spent his childhood watching rockets take off from Florida and then travelled to more than 149 countries as he waited his own chance to fly into space.

Green and Jorge were cheered on during the flight from a launch viewing party at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, home to U.S. Space Camp. An experienced radiologist, Green was both an attendee and counselor at Space Camp prior to chairing the Space Camp Alumni Association, and she is now a member of the rocket center's education foundation board.

As a high school and middle school teacher in Galveston, Texas, Jorge has brought students to Space Camp, as well as attended Space Academy for Educators herself. This was her second experience being weightless, having earlier conducted student-designed experiments aboard a parabolic flight.

The NS-32 launch was Blue Origin's 12th human spaceflight since 2021 — bringing the total passenger count to 64 — and the company's 30th flight above the Kármán Line since 2015. This was the first launch since Bezos' fiancé Lauren Sánchez flew with an all-woman crew that included pop star Katy Perry and TV morning show host Gayle King in April.

Blue Origin is gearing up for the launch of its next space tourism flight, and you can watch the mission live here at Space.com.

The 32nd overall mission of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle, known as NS-32, is set to lift off today (May 31) from the company's Launch Site One in West Texas. The mission marks the 12th human flight for the New Shepard program.

Blue Origin is aiming for a launch window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) on Saturday. A livestream of the New Shepard launch will be available on Blue Origin's website 30 minutes before liftoff, and it will be simulcast on YouTube and Blue Origin's X account. The broadcast will also be carried at the top of this page as well as the Space.com homepage and YouTube channel. The webcast will include commentary, mission updates and information about the crew members flying on NS-32.

The NS-32 crew includes entrepreneurs, professionals and a science educator. Among them are Aymette Medina Jorge, a U.S.-based STEM advocate; Dr. Gretchen Green, a radiologist and lifelong space enthusiast; and Jaime Alemán, a former ambassador to the U.S. and lifelong adventurer, having visited all 193 U.N.-recognized countries.

Also flying on the mission are Jesse Williams, a businessman and mountaineer, who has summited six of the seven highest peaks on Earth, including Mt. Everest; Mark Rocket, an aerospace entrepreneur set to become the first New Zealander to reach space; Paul Jeris, an entrepreneur, avid traveler and lifelong space enthusiast, who was inspired by his NASA engineer father.

NS-32 will carry the six passengers on a roughly 11-minute journey that will take them past the Kármán line — the internationally recognized boundary of space, which lies 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth. The capsule will separate from the rocket booster shortly after liftoff and spend several minutes in microgravity before descending back to the desert floor under parachutes downrange in Texas.

During the brief mission, the NS-32 crew will experience a few minutes of weightlessness, allowing them to float freely inside the capsule and observe Earth from space. Through the capsule’s large panoramic windows, the crew will see the planet's curvature and the stark contrast between the bright blue atmosphere and the blackness of space.

Many astronauts describe this as the "overview effect" — a profound shift in perspective that evokes a deep sense of connection to Earth and the fragility of its environment.

The NS-32 suborital mission, which will be Blue Origin's 12th human flight to date, is expected to lift off from Launch Site One in West Texas during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). Blue Origin will stream the launch live, beginning 30 mins prior to launch; Space.com will air the webcast if, as expected, the company makes it available.

The suborbital flight aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket, lasting approximately 11 minutes, will carry six civilians with varied professional and personal achievements, highlighting the increasing accessibility of space tourism. Here's some information about the six people who will fly on the NS-32 mission, which Blue Origin provided in a mission update.

Aymette (Amy) Medina Jorge

As a STEM educator from Galveston, Texas, Amy Medina Jorge has led over 60 student-driven space experiments, including biometric sensor tests and in-flight 3D printing on zero-G flights. Born in Puerto Rico, she advocates for Hispanic representation in STEM fields and was honored with the 2023 AIAA and Challenger Center Trailblazing STEM Educator Award. Her seat is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, a Mexican company focused on social impact and accessible healthcare across Latin America.

Dr. Gretchen Green

A radiologist with over 20 years of clinical experience specializing in women's imaging, Dr. Gretchen Green is also a lifelong space enthusiast. Her journey began with Space Camp in 1986, where she later returned as a Crew Trainer and eventually chaired the Space Camp Alumni Association. She currently serves on the board of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation.

As a nationally recognized expert witness and entrepreneur, Green founded The Expert Resource to help doctors build expert witness practices. Green is also a certified life coach who has biked across the U.S., reached the North Pole, and holds degrees from Harvard, Yale and Brown.

Jaime Alemán

A Panamanian attorney and former ambassador to the U.S., Jaime Alemán is also a seasoned traveler, having visited all 193 United Nations-recognized countries, both the North and South Poles — and now he's headed to space. Alemán holds degrees from Notre Dame and Duke Law School and is a senior partner at Alemán, Cordero, Galindo & Lee — a law firm he co-founded in 1985.

He also serves on the board of one of Panama's largest private banks and holds board positions with Special Olympics International, Duke Law School and the Woodrow Wilson Center's Latin America Program.

Jesse Williams

Canadian entrepreneur Jesse Williams has launched multiple ventures, including eDirect Software, Car History Group and Just Think Media. An avid cyclist and mountaineer, Williams has summited six of the seven highest peaks on Earth, including Mt. Everest. Several symbols on the NS-32 mission patch — bike gears and Mt. Everest — represent his adventurous spirit.

Mark Rocket

The CEO of Kea Aerospace and president of Aerospace New Zealand, Mark Rocket is set to become the first New Zealander to reach space. Christchurch-based Kea, which was founded in 2018, focuses on developing sustainable aerospace technology aimed at advancing high-altitude flight and environmental monitoring. Rocket was also a seed investor of Rocket Lab, co-directing the company from 2007 to 2011. The kea parrot on the mission patch symbolizes his homeland of New Zealand.

Paul Jeris

A seasoned real estate businessman and global traveler, Paul Jeris' passion for space was sparked early by his father, a NASA engineer. Growing up on Florida's Space Coast, he spent summers watching historic launches of the Apollo, space shuttle, Mariner, Voyager and Viking missions.

A dedicated explorer, Jeris has traveled to over 149 countries with the goal of visiting every nation on Earth. But his ultimate dream has always been to journey into space and witness the planet's beauty from above. He also gives back to the travel community by serving on several local and regional tourism boards.

Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, announced on Tuesday (May 27) that it's targeting Saturday (May 31) for its next crewed suborbital flight.

That mission — called NS-32, because it will be the 32nd overall mission of the reusable New Shepard vehicle — will lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas site during a window that opens at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT; 8:30 a.m. local Texas time). Blue Origin will stream the action live, beginning 30 minutes before liftoff.

NS-32 will carry six people to suborbital space and back, on a flight that will last a total of 10 to 12 minutes.

Those passengers are Panamanian businessman and attorney Jaime Alemán, who served as that nation's ambassador to the United States; radiologist, life coach and explorer Gretchen Green; entrepreneur and real estate developer Paul Jeris; award-winning middle school and high school teacher Aymette Medina Jorge; the aptly named Mark Rocket, an entrepreneur from New Zealand; and Canadian entrepreneur, adventurer and mountaineer Jesse Williams.

You can learn more about all six in Blue Origin's NS-32 crew reveal update.

Blue Origin's first-ever crewed spaceflight took place on July 20, 2021, the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Bezos himself flew on that mission, along with his brother Jeff, aviation pioneer Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.

The company has flown a number of celebrities on its crewed missions, including famed "Star Trek" actor William Shatner in October 2021 and pop star Katy Perry just last month.

That flight — known as NS-32, because it will be the 32nd overall mission of of the autonomous, reusable New Shepard vehicle — will lift off from Blue Origin's West Texas launch site on a date yet to be announced.

NS-32 will carry six people on a brief trip to and from suborbital space. The crew consists of the aptly named Mark Rocket, Jaime Alemán, Gretchen Green, Paul Jeris, Aymette Medina Jorge and Jesse Williams, Blue Origin announced on Wednesday (May 21).

Rocket is an entrepreneur from New Zealand with considerable spaceflight bona fides. He's the CEO of Kea Aerospace and the president of Aerospace New Zealand, for example, and was a seed investor in the launch company Rocket Lab, which he also served as co-director until 2011, according to Blue Origin's Wednesday update.

Alemán is a Panamanian businessman and attorney who previously served as that nation's ambassador to the United States.

"He serves on Special Olympics International’s Board of Directors, Duke Law School's Board of Visitors, and the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin America Board," Blue Origin wrote in the update. "A lifelong adventurer, Jaime will become the first person to travel to all 193 U.N.-recognized countries, the North and South Poles, and space."

Green is a radiologist, life coach, explorer and Space Camp alumna who bicycled across the United States at age 16 to help fight hunger. Jeris is an entrepreneur and real estate developer whose passion for space was inspired by his father, a NASA engineer.

Medina Jorge is an award-winning middle school and high school STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) teacher who has led more than 60 space and zero-gravity flight experiments. Her seat on NS-32 is sponsored by Farmacias Similares, "a Mexican company committed to social impact and accessible healthcare across Latin America," Blue Origin wrote.

Williams is a Canadian entrepreneur, adventurer and mountaineer who has summitted six of Earth's seven highest peaks, including Mt. Everest.

You can learn more about all six of these people in Blue Origin's update.

NS-32 has a tough act to follow. Blue Origin's most recent launch, NS-31, sent singer Katy Perry, journalist Gayle King, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen and three other women to the final frontier on April 14. It was the first human spaceflight with no male crewmembers since June 16, 1963, when the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova launched to Earth orbit for a three-day solo mission.

New Shepard flights are considerably shorter than that; they last just 10 to 12 minutes from liftoff until capsule touchdown. During that brief window, passengers experience a few minutes of weightlessness and get to see Earth against the blackness of space.

As the 100th woman to travel to space, Calandrelli isn't just celebrating personal achievement — she's using her journey to inspire others, uplift underrepresented communities and push the boundaries of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) accessibility.

"Going to space had been something that I had hoped to do … ever since I started studying aerospace engineering," Calandrelli told Space.com. Flying on Blue Origin's NS-28 suborbital flight "was everything I hoped it would be — and so much more."

NS-28, which launched on Nov. 22, 2024, also served as a platform to spotlight issues close to Calandrelli's heart, particularly those affecting her home state of West Virginia. A flash drive she carried into space became a powerful symbol: a zero-gravity indicator filled with nearly 10,000 dreams submitted by followers across the country. With an optional donation for each submission, Calandrelli turned her flight into a fundraiser, carrying people's wishes to the stars while raising over $30,000 for West Virginia's foster care system.

" I recognize that going into space is something that is an incredibly privileged thing to do," Calandrelli said, noting that fewer than 700 people have flown to the final frontier. "I always told myself that if I were to have that chance, I would try to use it to uplift others. In West Virginia, kids are entering the foster system at four times the rate of any other state — it's a system that is really pressed for resources, and so I thought, 'How can I help raise money for that?'"

Calandrelli adopted the handle "@TheSpaceGal" on social media years before going to space. With her NS-28 flight, she noted, she finally lived up to her nickname. Even more rewarding was becoming the 100th woman in space, which is something she embraces with deep gratitude.

"For me, that number was really meaningful. I had a personal goal of trying to be in the first 100 … but to actually be the 100th felt like a bookend to a milestone that was hard fought and hard won — particularly by the women who came before me when it wasn't as popular or accepted," she said. "I feel a lot of gratitude because it was certainly a lot easier for me to achieve this dream than the women who were much earlier in the count."

Calandrelli points to commercial spaceflight as a key driver in increasing diversity within the industry, specifically the representation of women and minorities in space exploration. After all, she noted, about 65 of the first 100 women who have flown in space have done so within the last five years, as private spaceflight has really started to ramp up.

"I'm hopeful that numbers 101 through 1,000 will come about 10 to 20 times faster," she said.

But spaceflight is just one aspect of Calandrelli's broader mission: making science more accessible and exciting to young people and families, especially those without a STEM background. After her Netflix show "Emily's Wonder Lab" came to an end, she launched "Emily's Science Lab" on YouTube, where she continues to share experiments and educational content, making science feel fun and easy for families.

"'Emily's Wonder Lab' was my most successful and visible project — it really helped launch my career in children's education. After that got canceled, I really had to take control of my career, because I didn't want to rely on Netflix to continue having the impact that that show was having," she said. "So … I created my own show. Launching that, taking care of that, fostering that community on YouTube has been my biggest pet project right now."

With more than four million followers across social media platforms and projects in books, television and even a potential documentary about NS-28, Calandrelli is uniquely positioned to inspire the next generation of scientists.

"My goal is to be your scientific BFF. I'm trying to build the tools necessary for families to easily instill science confidence in their kids," Calandrelli said. "I grew up in a family that wasn't in STEM, so I know how intimidating it can be."

With the world becoming more scientifically and technologically advanced, Calandrelli believes building "science confidence" in kids is one of the most valuable gifts parents can give. Her advice for parents and educators is to start with relatable role models and simple, hands-on experiments.

"I always recommend at-home science experiments … with accessible materials like Arm & Hammer baking soda, vinegar and food coloring — stuff you probably already have in your kitchen," she said. "It's a tangible, tactile way for kids to feel like they are a scientist, [and] it helps them see themselves in these roles and careers as they get older."

It's also important to approach science from all angles, Calandrelli. Kids learn in different ways, she explained, so a combination of educational videos, books and hands-on experiments can help parents identify what resonates best with their child and use that to make them feel confident in STEM.

With her distinct blend of scientific expertise, educational passion, and now, astronaut experience, Calandrelli continues to redefine what it means to be a space explorer — not just someone who leaves Earth, but someone who brings others along for the journey.

In high school, Aisha Bowe's guidance counselor told her she wasn't suited for a career in aerospace engineering, and that she should try cosmetology instead. On Monday (April 14), Bowe proved that naysayer wrong in a big way, becoming the first Bahamian woman to fly to space.

Bowe was part of Blue Origin's 11th crewed mission, which carried six women on the first all-female spaceflight since the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space over 60 years ago. Inside Blue Origin's New Shepard capsule, Aisha Bowe strapped in alongside her five crewmates for a quick, 10.5-minute suborbital ride to space and back.

New Shepard's rocket lifted off with the sextet on Monday at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT) from Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas. The brief flight allowed its passengers a few minutes of weightlessness and took them above the Kármán Line — the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) boundary of space — before parachuting back to Earth for a soft desert touchdown. Bowe's first thought after landing: "I'm ready to go back."

Bowe pursued her dream to go to space by earning degrees in aerospace and space systems engineering. She is a former NASA rocket scientist and is currently CEO of STEMBoard. Bowe also founded the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education technology company LINGO and is a standing member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Related: Katy Perry and Gayle King launch to space with 4 others on historic all-female Blue Origin rocket flight

Bowe launched with pop star Katy Perry, journalists Gayle King and Lauren Sánchez, author and bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyen and film producer Kerianne Flynn.

Though their flight to space was short, Bowe found a deep connection to the launch through her own roots. In a post-launch press conference on Monday, Bowe drew parallels between the suborbital trajectory of her Blue Origin mission to that of the first American in space, Alan Shepard, for whom Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle is named.

"In 1961, when Alan Shepard was launched, we know where he left from, but do you know where he landed? He landed in Grand Bahama," Bowe said. Her family is from the Bahamas, and Bowe's 92-year-old grandfather traveled to Texas to watch her launch to space.

Bowe wasn't the only private astronaut representing a nation's milestone in space. Nguyễn became the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space. The mission also carried the 100th person to fly on a private, suborbital spaceflight mission — an honor bestowed upon Bowe, thanks to her New Shepard seat assignment, Seat 04.