Blue Origin aims to fly another set of space tourists to suborbital space aboard its New Shepard rocket next week.

The company’s NS-37 mission is targeting a launch date of December 18. It will send six people to the edge of space and back, including the first-ever wheelchair user to fly to space, aerospace engineer Michaela (Michi) Benthaus.

Blue Origin’s latest space tourism flight to break new ground

Blue Origin’s space tourism trips fly groups of people to suborbital space for a roughly 10-minute window, during which they experience the wightlessness of space. The company has famously flown its own founder Jeff Bezos to space, as well as famous passengers including William Shatner and Katy Perry.

Blue Origin’s NS-37 will be the company’s 37th overall flight of its reusable suborbital New Shepard rocket. The rocket has flown 16 space tourist flights overall, as it also flies crewless science missions.

One of the NS-37 passengers, European Space Agency aerospace engineer Michaela Benthaus, has used a wheelchair since suffering a spinal cord injury as a result of a 2018 mountain-biking accident. The latest mission will, therefore, break new ground and continue Blue Origin’s mission of improving accessibility to space.

The spaceflight is currently scheduled to launch at around 9:30 am EST (8:30 am local time) on Dec. 18. Blue Origin will stream the launch live, with coverage typically starting around 40 minutes before liftoff.

Blue Origin’s NS-37 crew

The crew who will fly alongside Benthaus on NS-37 are investor Joey Hyde, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch, investor Adonis Pouroulis, and ex-SpaceX employee Jason Stansell.

According to a press statement, Stansell was one of the first employees at SpaceX, having worked there between 2002 and 2021. He served as the private space company’s vice president of build and flight reliability.

Blue Origin also revealed the NS-37 mission patch on its website this week. According to the company, the vairous symbols on the badge represent the NS-37 crew.

The NS-37 mission patch. Source: Blue Origin

The DNA symbolizes the importance of science to Neal Milch, while the hippo represents Behaus’ favorite animal. According to the aerospace engineer, she will take her hippo plush, which comforted her during her time in hospital, to space.

The baobab tree, meanwhile, represents Adonis Pouroulis’ roots. The spiral galaxy alludes to Joey Hyde’s astrophysics research, while the “K” is in memory of Stansell’s brother, Kevin.

Beyond its space tourism servive, Blue Origin has been making impressive strides to challenge SpaceX as the dominant force in the private space sector. The company aims to send its Mk1 lunar lander to the moon early next year. If all goes to plan, there is a chance Blue Origin’s spacecraft could be used instead of SpaceX’s Starship to fly humans back to the moon for NASA’s upcoming Artemis III mission.

To date, Blue Origin, which was founded by Jeff Bezos, has launched its orbital rocket New Glenn twice. It is also reportedly looking to build orbital data centers to meet the rising demand for energy-intensive data centers, due to AI.