Sixty years after Alan Shepard became the first American to go to space, his eldest daughter, Laura Shepard Churchley, was able to replicate her father’s achievement when she took a Blue Origin Crew-3 11-minute flight to suborbital space and back.
The flight was launched at 9am CST (7pm Saturday GST) from Launch Site One in West Texas and landed back safely at 9:11am CST (7:11 GST). The launch initially set for December 9, but was postponed to Saturday due to bad weather.
Blue Origin’s third flight to suborbital space was also the first to carry six astronauts to space, compared to the last two missions which carried only four.
Along with the 74-year-old Laura, the other honorary guests on the flight was ‘Good Morning America’ co-anchor Michael Strahan. The other four were paying customers – space industry executive and philanthropist Dylan Taylor; investor Evan Dick; Bess Ventures founder Lane Bess and Cameron Bess. Lane and Cameron became the first parent-child pair to fly in space, the company said.
Ms Shepard Churchley’s father, who died in 1998, took off to space in his Mercury flight from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on 5 May, 1961. Saturday’s flight was five minutes and 116 miles shorter than Shepard’s inaugural flight.
The 11-minute flight carried the crew members far above the Karman line – an internationally recognised boundary of space that lies 62 miles (100 km) above Earth’s surface. The passengers were briefly able to experience zero gravity on the sub-orbital flight.
The flight was also dedicated to Glen de Vries, who flew to space on Blue Origin’s second human flight. The co-founder of the clinical IT software giant Medidata Solutions died in a plane crash last month.
“We dedicate the #NS19 flight to the memory of Glen de Vries. His passion and dedication will not be forgotten. #AdAstra Glen,” the tweet said.
The flight came just after the FAA confirmed that it closed an investigation into Blue Origin’s safety culture without finding any substantial issues. The FAA, which is responsible for issuing licenses for commercial rocket launches, started looking into the company in early October after 21 current and former employees at Blue Origin published an essay alleging a culture of rampant sexual harassment and safety concerns with the company’s rockets.
It is New Shepard’s third human flight this year, the sixth for the programme in 2021, and the 19th in its history.
On July 20, Blue Origin carried its first human flight which included founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and Blue Origin’s first customer, Oliver Daemen.
