Blue Origin scrubs space tourist rocket launch with first wheelchair user due to last minute 'observation'
Michi Benthaus and her five crewmates will not go to space Thursday (Dec. 18).
by Mike Wall · SpaceShare by:
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Aerospace engineer Michi Benthaus will wait a little longer before she becomes the first wheelchair user ever to reach space.
Blue Origin was forced to scrub th launch of its suborbital New Shepard rocket carrying Benthaus and her five crewmates, which was scheduled to lift off from the company's West Texas launch site Thursday.
Instead, the launch countdown was put on hold twice, ultimately resulting in the postponement of the NS-37 mission. The first, due to upper level winds, pushed T-0 into the 11 o'clock hour (1600 GMT). Once the count resumed, another hold was called at T-58 seconds, due to an "issue with built-in checks prior to flight," Blue Origin commentators said during the mission's livestream.
Scrub! Blue Origin delays launch of 1st wheelchair user and 5 others to suborbital space - YouTube
Benthaus, who works at the European Space Agency, has used a wheelchair since suffering a mountain-biking accident in 2018. Joining her on the flight, once it gets off the ground, 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 has designated the mission NS-37, because it will be 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.
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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.
Sixteen of New Shepard's 36 flights to date have carried passengers; the other 20 have been uncrewed research missions. The 16 crewed flights have lofted a total of 86 people, though just 80 individuals — six passengers have been repeat customers.
Blue Origin has not disclosed how much it charges for a seat aboard New Shepard.