Blue Origin NS-16

"NS-16" redirects here. For other uses, see NS16 (disambiguation).

Blue Origin NS-16 was a sub-orbital spaceflight mission operated by Blue Origin which flew on 20 July 2021.^[1] The mission was the sixteenth flight of the company's New Shepard integrated launch vehicle and spacecraft, and its first flight with humans aboard. It carried into space American billionaire and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, pilot and Mercury 13 member Wally Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Daemen. The flight commenced from Blue Origin's Corn Ranch sub-orbital launch site in West Texas aboard the third flight of New Shepard booster NS4 and the spacecraft RSS First Step, both having previously flown on NS-14 and NS-15 earlier in the year.^[2][3][4]

Blue Origin NS-16

Mission type	Sub-orbital human spaceflight
Operator	Blue Origin
Mission duration	10 minutes, 10 seconds
Apogee	107 km (66 mi)
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	RSS First Step
Manufacturer	Blue Origin
Crew
Crew size	4
Members	Jeff Bezos Mark Bezos Wally Funk Oliver Daemen
Start of mission
Launch date	20 July 2021, 8:11 am CDT (13:11 UTC)
Rocket	New Shepard (NS4)
Launch site	Corn Ranch, LS-1
Contractor	Blue Origin
End of mission
Landing date	20 July 2021, 8:21 am CDT (13:21 UTC)
Landing site	Corn Ranch
Blue Origin NS-16 mission patch New Shepard flights ← Blue Origin NS-15 Blue Origin NS-17 →

Blue Origin NS-16 was the first human spaceflight from the U.S. state of Texas. Daemen, aged 18, and Funk, aged 82, became the youngest and oldest people to travel to space, respectively, until William Shatner took the record of oldest in space at age 90 on NS-18.^[2][5] The flight was approximately 10 minutes, and crossed the Kármán line. The mission became the first fully automated flight with civilian passengers,^[6] as well as the first multi-person, internationally recognized sub-orbital spaceflight.

Passengers

Four passengers flew on Blue Origin NS-16.^[2][7] Originally, the anonymous winner (later revealed as Justin Sun^[8]) of a US$28 million auction held by Blue Origin in support of its Club for the Future program was to be the fourth person on RSS First Step.^[7][9] However, the anonymous winner had unspecified scheduling conflicts and was re-manifested for a future New Shepard flight; Oliver Daemen took the vacated position.^[10][11] Oliver's father Joes Daemen, the CEO of private equity firm Somerset Capital Partners, paid for the fourth seat; Joes had come second in the auction for the seat, so after the auction winner (Justin Sun) did not take the seat, it was passed onto Joes, who paid for the seat and gave it to Oliver.^[12][13]

Position	Passenger
Tourist	Jeff Bezos First spaceflight
Tourist	Mark Bezos First spaceflight
Tourist	Wally Funk First spaceflight
Tourist	Oliver Daemen[14] First spaceflight