The Blue Origin crew, including history’s 100th woman to fly to space, lands safely

On November 23, 2024By Littum

“The Space Gal” is now the one Woman number 100 to fly to space.

Emily Calandrelli, who adopted her online persona long before booking a trip with Blue Origin, took off Friday (Nov. 22) as one of six passengers aboard the company’s New Shepard rocket. The 10-minute suborbital flight — about four minutes of which were spent in space — launched and landed at Blue Origin’s West Texas site.

“This is my dream,” Calandrelli wrote on social media when it was announced that she would be on Blue Origin’s NS-28 crew. “I studied aerospace engineering for almost a decade, then became the first woman in the United States with a national science (television) show. It became my mission to bring representation to girls in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).”

“Now I want to become one of the first 100 women in space and show girls everywhere that they too can reach for the stars,” she said.

a woman in a blue flight suit enters a spacecraft inside a hangar — Emily “The Space Gal” Calandrelli became the 100th woman to fly into space on Blue Origin’s NS-28 New Shepard suborbital mission on Friday, November 22, 2024. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

The ninth human spaceflight in Blue Origin history, NS-28’s crew also included Marc and Sharon Hagle, a married couple on their second Blue Origin launch after flying on the NS-20 mission in 2022; Austin Litteral, whose seat was sponsored by livestream shopping platform Whatnot; JD Russell, an entrepreneur and former federal marine, fish and game warden; and Hank Wolfond, CEO of a Canadian investment firm and a private pilot.

Related: ‘The Space Gal’ Emily Calandrelli Opens Up About Her Blue Origin Flight (Interview)

The six civilian astronauts ed on board “RSS First Step”, Blue Origin’s first of two manned New Shepard spacecraft. By lifting at At 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT or 9:30 a.m. local Texas time), the capsule reached an altitude of 347,661 feet (65.8 miles or 106 kilometers) and flew 3 miles (4.8 km) above the Kármán line, which serves as the internationally accepted boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.

The rubber teardrop-shaped spacecraft then descended under parachutes for a “soft” landing, while the new Shepard propulsion module (or booster) that lifted the crew to altitude made an engine-assisted vertical touchdown.

Calandrelli is the 10th woman to fly on a suborbital spaceflight above the Kármán line. She is the 21st woman to reach space on a suborbital orbit, including the astronauts who soared higher than the US-recognized altitude of 50 miles (80 km) on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket.

Overall, Calandrelli is now among the 94 men and women who have seen Earth from over 50 miles high, but who did not enter orbit. Including all the people (male and female) who have flown into space on orbital or suborbital launches, she is the 714th space traveler (as tallied by The Association of Space Explorers).

A native of West Virginia, Calandrelli is the first woman and third person to represent her home state in space (following NASA astronauts Jon McBride and Drew Morgan).

“I can’t believe that (a) girl from Morgantown, West Virginia, is going to represent the 100th woman in history to fly into space.” Calandrelli wrote.

Although the cost of her seat remains undisclosed, Calandrelli said she paid “as much as the others” on New Shepard through the support of “20 to 30 organizations, brands and people.” In return, she offered to make sponsored posts on her online channels and give speeches.

a blue, pink and white space missio patch showing a white space capsule above the text

Blue Origin’s NS-28 New Shepard mission patch includes the color pink and a girl in pink overalls to represent crew member and 100th woman in space Emily “The Space Gal” Calandrelli. (Image credit: Blue Origin)

The first woman to fly into space (and the first woman to go into orbit) was Soviet-era cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who launched in 1963. NASA Astronaut Karen Nyberg became the 50th woman to leave Earth’s atmosphere in 2008.

The first woman to launch on a suborbital flight was Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, whose first of six SpaceShipTwo missions (to date) was in 2019. first woman to fly on New Shepard was Wally Funk, an aviator and member of the so-called “Mercury 13” who underwent the same medical tests as NASA’s first astronauts in the early 1960s.

Among the personal items Calandrelli took with her to space was a montage showing images of the 99 women who flew before her.

“I wanted to honor how they paved the way for women like me and how they’ve made it possible for the next generation of girls who want to reach for the stars to actually grab a few,” she said.