Blue Origin to fly first wheelchair user — engineer Michi Benthaus — on New Shepard suborbital flight

Blue Origin will fly German aerospace engineer Michi Benthaus — who has used a wheelchair since 2018 — on a New Shepard suborbital mission scheduled for Dec. 18 at 9:30 a.m. ET. The 10–12 minute flight will cross the Kármán Line (~100 km), offering weightlessness and Earth views.

Discovered 2025-12-17T12:09:46.182728-08:00 | 2025-12-17T12:09:46.182728-08:00

Briefing

What Hype is tracking

  • The mission puts a high‑visibility, accessibility‑focused passenger aboard a commercially operated suborbital vehicle that will cross the Kármán Line (~100 km) in a 10–12 minute profile, reinforcing New Shepard’s role in routine suborbital human flights and public outreach — see Blue Origin’s push to boost New Shepard cadence and new spaceports.
  • Flying diverse civilian passengers builds operational and public credibility that feeds into Blue Origin’s broader commercialization and crewed ambitions, a thread connected to its recent New Glenn and spacecraft capability upgrades and strategy toward lunar and orbital services.
  • The flight continues the company’s pattern of mixing researchers and non‑traditional flyers on New Shepard flights, supporting suborbital science and customer experience development that underpins future commercial and government work — see the university researcher flight collaboration on a prior New Shepard mission (Utah State).

Reported By

SpaceWatch Global Space Policy Online news.ssbcrack.com Sky News houstonchronicle.com The Independent
Sources Tracked
30
First Seen
2025-12-17T12:09:46.182728-08:00
Latest Update
2025-12-21T23:50:01.095222-08:00
Coverage
Space

Sources

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