Blue Origin on Saturday launched a wheelchair user into space for the first time, sending a six-person crew on a brief suborbital flight from its West Texas site.
The New Shepard NS-37 mission lifted off at 8:16 a.m. Central Standard Time (1416 GMT). Among the crew was Michaela Benthaus, an aerospace and mechatronics engineer at the European Space Agency who began using a wheelchair after a 2018 mountain biking accident that left her with a spinal cord injury.
The capsule touched down about 10 minutes after liftoff.
The flight had been scheduled for Thursday but was postponed after an issue was detected during preflight checks.
Saturday’s launch was the 37th New Shepard mission and the 16th to carry humans above the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of space. Blue Origin last year completed its first all-women crewed mission in April 2025.