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Blue Origin Announces Aug. 4 for New Shepard’s Next Flight
NS-22 spaceflight participants (Credit: Blue Origin)

Blue Origin Mission Update

Blue Origin today announced its sixth human flight, NS-22, will lift off from Launch Site One on Thursday, August 4. The launch window opens at 8:30 AM CDT / 13:30 UTC. The webcast will start at T-30 minutes. 

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  • July 29, 2022
Commercial Space Travelers Outnumbered Professional Astronauts in First Half of 2022
Axiom Mission 1 astronauts, left to right, Larry Connor, Mark Pathy, Michael López-Alegría, and Eytan Stibbe. The astronauts are approved by NASA and its international partners for Axiom Space’s first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. (Credits: Chris Gunn – Axiom Space)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

The first half of 2022 saw more commercial travelers — 16 — launch into space than the 10 professional astronauts who work for government-run space agencies. However, those numbers come with an asterisk or two.

Four of the 14 astronauts who launched into orbit flew on Axiom Space’s privately funded and operated crew flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Blue Origin launched 12 individuals into space on two flights of the company’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle.

The other 10 astronauts who launched to ISS and the Tiangong space station worked fulltime for NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), China Manned Space Agency, or Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Corporation. SpaceX flew American and European astronauts to ISS on the company-owned Crew Dragon spacecraft under a NASA contract. The Russians and Chinese flew aboard government-owned and operated spacecraft.

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  • July 25, 2022
Space For Humanity Will Send First Egyptian to Space Aboard Blue Origin’s NS-22 Flight
Sara Sabry is selected as Space For Humanity’s second Citizen Astronaut and will fly on NS-22, making her the first Egyptian to ever visit Space. (Credit: Space for Humanity)

DENVER, July 22, 2022 (Space for Humanity PR) — Today, Space For Humanity (S4H), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, announced its selection committee has chosen Sara Sabry to become the organization’s second sponsored Citizen Astronaut. Sara will become the first Egyptian to fly to space when she flies aboard Blue Origin’s NS-22 flight.

Sara, 29, is an Egyptian mechanical and biomedical engineer and founder of Deep Space Initiative (DSI), a nonprofit which aims to increase accessibility for space research. Sara became Egypt’s first female analog astronaut in 2021, when she was selected to complete a two week analog Moon mission, which simulated the extreme conditions astronauts experience in Space. She will join five other crew members including Coby Cotton, Mario Ferreira, Vanessa O’Brien, Clint Kelly III, and Steve Young aboard New Shepard to experience the cognitive shift of the Overview Effect and incorporate that new found perspective into a social impact project with the support of S4H’s Citizen Astronaut Program (CAP).

“When we dare to dream big, we achieve things deemed impossible, we break boundaries, write history, and set new challenges for the future,” said Sabry. “I am incredibly excited that Space For Humanity has offered me this opportunity and I am honored to be representing Egypt in Space for the first time. My ancestors have always dreamt big and achieved the impossible, and I hope to bring that back. This is just the beginning.”

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  • July 23, 2022
First Egyptian and Portuguese Astronauts to join Dude Perfect Cofounder on New Shepard’s 22nd Flight
NS-22 spaceflight participants (Credit: Blue Origin)

SEATTLE, Wash. (Blue Origin PR) — Blue Origin today announced the crew flying on its NS-22 mission will include Dude Perfect cofounder Coby Cotton, Portuguese entrepreneur Mário Ferreira, British-American mountaineer Vanessa O’Brien, technology leader Clint Kelly III, Egyptian engineer Sara Sabry, and telecommunications executive Steve Young. Sara will become the first person from Egypt to fly to space; Mário will become the first from Portugal. Vanessa will become the first woman to reach extremes on land, sea, and air, completing the Explorers’ Extreme Trifecta, a Guinness World Record.

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  • July 22, 2022
ICEYE Expands its Business to Offer Complete Satellite Missions for Customers
ICEYE specialists inspecting an ICEYE SAR satellite in a clean room. (Image Credit: ICEYE)

Owning the world’s largest SAR constellation, ICEYE is the only company in the world that can provide customers with complete SAR satellite missions delivered in months.

HELSINKI, Finland (ICEYE PR) — ICEYE, an Earth observation company operating the world’s largest synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, today announced the establishment of a new line of business focused solely on delivering fully operational satellite missions to customers looking for their own orbital SAR capabilities.

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  • June 28, 2022
ICEYE Introduces the World’s First Wide Area Imaging for Persistent Monitoring with New Space SAR Satellites
A wide area ICEYE radar satellite image of the Strait of Gibraltar. (Credit: ICEYE)

ICEYE’s persistent monitoring customers now have access to the world’s most comprehensive set of radar imaging capabilities.

HELSINKI, Finland (ICEYE PR) – Finnish New Space leader ICEYE announced today the commercial availability of wide area imaging capabilities covering 10,000 km² data acquisitions with its SAR (synthetic-aperture radar) satellite constellation. ICEYE is the only New Space SAR satellite provider to achieve wide-area Scan mode imaging, with up to a 100-times larger area coverage from the closest alternatives in the marketplace. Thanks to the completely unique system design of ICEYE’s SAR satellites, ICEYE is now able to provide the world’s single most comprehensive persistent monitoring capabilities both for land and sea data use cases.

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  • June 15, 2021
ICEYE Introduces the World’s First Wide Area Imaging for Persistent Monitoring with New Space SAR Satellites
A wide area ICEYE radar satellite image of the Strait of Gibraltar. (Credit: ICEYE)

ICEYE’s persistent monitoring customers now have access to the world’s most comprehensive set of radar imaging capabilities.

HELSINKI, Finland, May 10, 2021 (ICEYE PR) – Finnish New Space leader ICEYE  announced today the commercial availability of wide area imaging capabilities covering 10,000 km² data acquisitions with its SAR (synthetic-aperture radar) satellite constellation. ICEYE is the only New Space SAR satellite provider to achieve wide-area Scan mode imaging, with up to a 100-times larger area coverage from the closest alternatives in the marketplace. Thanks to the completely unique system design of ICEYE’s SAR satellites, ICEYE is now able to provide the world’s single most comprehensive persistent monitoring capabilities both for land and sea data use cases.

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  • May 10, 2021