Amazon founder Jeff Bezos launched on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket Tuesday, soaring nearly 62 miles into suborbital space.
New Shepard’s rocket booster descended back to Earth’s surface just after 9:20 a.m., with the trip lasting just under the 11 minutes the trip was estimated to take.
“You’ve got a very happy crew, I want you to know,” Bezos said during the landing, before the parachutes successfully deployed above the capsule.
The peak altitude of the journey was around 351,210 feet, according to the Blue Origin broadcast.
BEZOS SET TO SEE SPACE ON TUESDAY, THE 52ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE MOON LANDING.
After the flight, Bezos said he wanted to thank “every” Amazon employee and customer for making his trip to space possible.
“I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all of this,” Bezos said during a press conference Tuesday. “Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there, and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It’s very appreciated.”
The 57-year-old Amazon founder was accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos, 53, aerospace pioneer Wally Funk, 82, and Dutch teenager Oliver Daemen, 18. The crew was greeted by friends and family after the hatch doors to the capsule opened.
Richard Branson made history as the first billionaire in space on July 11, climbing to heights of nearly 300,000 feet, just under the expected range of Blue Origin’s flight.
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Tuesday’s launch came 52 years to the day after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon.
