The flight will last about 10 minutes β carrying the group more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) into the sky and offering a few minutes of weightlessness before they descend.
But at what point during the flight will singer Katy Perry, journalist Gayle King and their fellow passengers reach βspaceβ?
Is it when they look outside their window and the blue glow of the sky fades to black? Is it when they reach an altitude at which satellites can orbit? Or is it when the atmosphere grows so thin that it no longer plays a defining role in the flight physics?
In the spaceflight community, there is no hard-and-fast definition.
Space can be defined in several ways, and the usefulness of the criteria for determining where it starts can depend on the scenario. Thatβs why various organizations around the world use different altitudes to mark that invisible threshold for recordkeeping purposes.
Update:
All six passengers on todayβs flight β Gayle King, Katy Perry, Amanda Nguyen, Aisha Bowe, Lauren SΓ‘nchez and Kerianne Flynn β have strapped into their 3.8-meter (12.5-foot) wide New Shepard capsule.
The team is now going through communications checks with mission control.
Mission controllers just gave the final green light for liftoff by confirming engineers are getting healthy data back from the rocket. The mission is poised to lift off in less than 4 minutes.
A puff of dust just kicked up in the West Texas desert as the New Shepard capsule carrying all six passengers made a safe touchdown.
βWelcome back to Earth,β mission controllers said over the communications loop.
