Billionaire and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is all set for his first trip to space later this month along with his brother Mark Bezos and Wally Funk, an 82-year-old aerospace expert.
Where will Bezos and company take off from?
The launch, which will be performed using New Shepherd, a space vessel of Blue Origin space company, will take place at %u2018Launch Site One%u2019, an isolated area near the small town of Van Horn in Texas. The launch site is about 120 miles away from El Paso in the southeastern direction.
The vessel is set to be airborne on July 20, 2021, a date that will also commemorate the 52nd year of the Apollo moon landing.
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Blue Origin%u2019s space vessel %u2018New Shepherd%u2019, after the launch, will continue climbing skywards until it reaches an altitude of 62 miles, which is also known as the Karaman line in scientific terms. This is the altitude that has been accepted as the boundary between earth%u2019s core atmosphere and the starting of space.
The vessel New Shepherd is a fully reusable space vehicle with the ability to carry out vertical take-off and lift-offs, mostly in a safe manner. New Shepherd requires no ground control crew or command centre and is capable of being fully controlled through the onboard computers.
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The mission, which is expected to last for 10 minutes, will carry out the landing in two separate stages. The crew shuttle will part itself and land with the help of parachutes while the rocket will perform a controlled vertical landing.
