Blue Origin sends first wheelchair user to space in milestone flight

Blue Origin has chalked up a milestone moment in space tourism, completing a suborbital flight that included the first wheelchair user ever to reach space.

The flight lifted off on Saturday morning from West Texas aboard New Shepard, the reusable rocket system operated by Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. Around 11 minutes later, the capsule was back on the ground, marking the company’s 16th human spaceflight.

Among the six passengers was Michaela Benthaus, an aerospace engineer at the European Space Agency who was paralysed in a mountain biking accident in 2018. Her flight makes her the first wheelchair user to travel to space, a moment that highlights how commercial spaceflight is gradually widening who gets access beyond the traditional astronaut mould.

Also on board was Hans Koenigsmann, a veteran of the private space industry who spent two decades at SpaceX, most recently as vice-president of avionics, before retiring in 2021. The rest of the crew included private passengers taking part in what Blue Origin markets as a brief but intense trip to the edge of space.

The launch had originally been planned for December 18, but Blue Origin delayed it after identifying an unspecified issue during pre-flight checks. Saturday’s mission went ahead without incident, with the rocket blasting off at about 9.15am New York time and touching down safely shortly afterwards.

Blue Origin does not publish ticket prices for its space tourism flights, but rival Virgin Galactic currently charges around $600,000 per seat for a similar suborbital experience. That puts these trips firmly in the luxury category, even as companies talk about broadening access over time.

The New Shepard vehicle is designed for short hops to the edge of space, offering a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth. While much of the public attention focuses on these tourism flights, Blue Origin is also pushing hard on heavier lift capabilities. Its larger New Glenn rocket is built to carry satellites and spacecraft into orbit and beyond.

In November, the company completed the second successful flight of New Glenn, deploying two NASA spacecraft bound for Mars and recovering the reusable booster on a barge in the Atlantic. That progress is central to Blue Origin’s ambition to compete more directly in the orbital launch market.

Saturday’s flight also follows other headline-grabbing missions this year. In April, a crew that included pop star Katy Perry, Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez and broadcaster Gayle King flew aboard New Shepard, forming the first all-female space crew in more than 60 years.