Blue Origin finally launched the NS-37 mission on December 20. The New Shepard booster lifted off at 7:46 pm IST carrying six humans aboard the New Shepard spacecraft from Blue Origin‘s Launch Site One in West Texas. The NS-37 mission was historic as it included Michaela Benthaus the world’s first wheelchair user to cross the Karman Line – internationally recognised boundary of space 100 kilometres above surface.
Space is for everyone. pic.twitter.com/OUs4V2LURA
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) December 20, 2025
About four minutes after liftoff, the crew named ‘Out of the Blue’ crossed the Karman Line to reach apogee – farthest point into the flight. The New Shepard booster made the touchdown first exactly 7.5 minutes after launch followed by the spacecraft, which made a safe landing in the desert three minutes later at T+10:34.
“I didn’t only love the view, I also loved going up,” Michi said after her extraction from the crew capsule. “You should never give up on your dreams,” she added.
Michi was accompanied by Neal Milch – a global business executive and entrepreneur, Joey Hyde – a Florida-based physicist, Hans Koenigsmann – a rocket scientist and former SpaceX employee, Adonis Pouroulis – an entrepreneur, investor and mining engineer, and Jason Stansell – a computer scientist. Sharing his experiece post-flight, Koenigsmann said – “It’s more intense than I thought.”
“You can never prepare for that scale and perspective to see earth in space,” Milch said. “I think it gives you a profound sense also of responsibility to convey this to others just how fine that thin blue line is that protects us from space and we need to take care of it.”
The launch was initially targeted for December 19 but got scrubbed after mission team found an issue with pre-flight built-in checks. With NS-37 mission, Blue Origin has now sent 92 individuals to space, six of whom have flown twice. It was the company’s seventh crew mission of 2025 and 16th in total. It also marked the completion of the 37th New Shepard flight to date.
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