{"id":190929,"date":"2025-12-18T09:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/190929\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T09:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T09:13:17","slug":"watch-blue-origin-launch-1st-wheelchair-user-to-space-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/190929\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Blue Origin launch 1st wheelchair user to space today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch live! Blue Origin to launch 1st wheelchair user and 5 others to suborbital space – YouTube
\n\"Watch<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

Aerospace engineer Michi Benthaus will become the first wheelchair user ever to reach space today (Dec. 18), and you can watch her historic launch live.<\/p>\n

A Blue Origin<\/a> suborbital New Shepard vehicle carrying Benthaus<\/a> and her five crewmates is scheduled to lift off from the company’s West Texas launch site Thursday during a window that opens at 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT; 10:00 a.m. local Texas time).<\/p>\n

You can watch the launch live here at Space.com courtesy of Blue Origin, or directly via the company<\/a>. Coverage will begin 40 minutes before liftoff.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

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The six passengers on Blue Origin’s upcoming NS-37 suborbital spaceflight. (Image credit: Blue Origin)<\/p>\n

Benthaus, who works at the European Space Agency<\/a>, has used a wheelchair since suffering a mountain-biking accident in 2018. Joining her on the flight are investors Joey Hyde and Adonis Pouroulis, aerospace engineer Hans Koenigsmann, entrepreneur Neal Milch and self-proclaimed “space nerd” Jason Stansell.<\/p>\n

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Koenigsmann’s name and face are familiar to many space fans, for he worked at SpaceX<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin calls Thursday’s mission NS-37, because it will be the 37th liftoff of New Shepard,<\/a> an autonomous, fully reusable rocket-capsule combo.<\/p>\n

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.<\/a><\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

They also get astronaut wings. New Shepard gets above the 62-mile-high (100 kilometers) K\u00e1rm\u00e1n line<\/a>, the widely recognized boundary where outer space begins.<\/p>\n

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The patch for Blue Origin’s NS-37 suborbital tourism mission. (Image credit: Blue Origin)<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 six passengers have been repeat customers.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin has not disclosed how much it charges for a seat aboard New Shepard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch live! Blue Origin to launch 1st wheelchair user and 5 others to suborbital space – YouTube Watch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-190929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}