By: Express Web DeskOctober 9, 2025 01:18 PM IST 3 min readAeronautics firm Blue Origin successfully launched its 15th space tourism mission on October 8, sending six passengers on a short journey beyond Earth’s atmosphere, including the first Kazakh woman spacefarer from Kazakhstan.The company’s New Shepard rocket lifted off from its West Texas launch site at 9:40 am EDT, beginning the suborbital flight designated NS-36. A bird’s-eye view Blue Origin Space Flight taking off from Texas (Photo: X@BlueOrigin).The mission went smoothly. New Shepard’s first stage returned for a controlled vertical landing about eight minutes after liftoff, while the capsule carrying the crew descended under parachutes, touching down safely in the Texas desert a few minutes later.Aboard the capsule were franchise executive Jeff Elgin, media entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, electrical engineer Clint Kelly III, software entrepreneur and author Aaron Newman, Ukrainian investor Vitalii Ostrovsky, and Will Lewis, CEO and chair of biotech company Insmed.Learn more about the NS-36 crew before their flight to space today! pic.twitter.com/BXcmeGiky6— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 8, 2025“Oh my God, oh my God!” Karagussova exclaimed as the capsule reached space. She was, in fact, the first woman from Kazakhstan to take a space flight, as per the Times of Central Asia.The crew, calling themselves the “Space Nomads”, had chosen the nickname for the flight, a tradition for Blue Origin passengers.This marked the second spaceflight for Clint Kelly, who conducted pioneering robotics and computer-science research at DARPA in the 1980s and previously flew on Blue Origin’s NS-22 mission in August 2022.Founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin has been operating New Shepard for over a decade. While today’s flight was the vehicle’s 36th overall, it was only the 15th mission carrying passengers, as most New Shepard flights are uncrewed research missions.Story continues below this adDuring NS-36, the capsule reached a maximum altitude of roughly 66 miles (107 kilometres), surpassing the Karman line, the widely recognised boundary of space. Passengers experienced a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of Earth against the darkness of space.The entire mission lasted 10 minutes and 21 seconds, from liftoff to landing. Blue Origin has not disclosed ticket prices for New Shepard flights, though Virgin Galactic, a key competitor in suborbital tourism, recently charged $600,000 per seat.Both companies charge a $150,000 initial fee to book a seat on their space flights. While Virgin Galctic’s fee is non-refundable, Blue Origin doesn’t charge outright and offers full refunds in case of a backout.© IE Online Media Services Pvt LtdTags:Blue Originspace flight