Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin yesterday launched the first space tourism rocket in almost two years, following the exploding of an unmanned rocket.
On Sunday, the rocket company successfully launched and landed its New Shepard's 25th mission, with the six people on board including the first ever US black astronaut.
The last space tourism space flight by Blue Origin was in August 2022.
Following that, an uncrewed New Shepard launch in September of that year saw one of its booster rockets fail shortly after lift-off, aborting its cargo capsule to safety before crashing into the Texas desert.
As it worked towards resuming flights, one of its rocket engines blew up at its West Texas testing facility last June, which added to concerns.
Uncrewed flights restarted last December.
Blue Origin is also working on a new heavy-lift orbital rocket, New Glenn, which stands at 98 metres tall compared to the 15 metres of New Shepard, in preparation for a much-delayed first flight later this year.
New Glenn was rolled out for the first time and upended in February, as the company prepared for missions including returning to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
Blue Origin has several New Glenn vehicles in production and customers include NASA, Amazon's Project Kuiper, Telesat, and Eutelsat, among others.