Blue Origin recently announced it would include Saturday Night Live's (SNL) Pete Davidson on its 20th mission on March 23.
According to the sub-orbital spaceflight services company's announcement, this future mission will be the fourth one where humans are involved in its rocket's cabin.
Blue Origin's 20th Flight - Details, Crew
Davidson, along with five other crew members, will be launched into suborbital space on March 23 at 9:30 a.m. EDT. They will board an NS-20 New Shepard rocket which will take off in Blue Origin's Launch Site One in West Texas, according to a report by Space.
Meanwhile, the launch will be broadcasted live on Blue Origin's official website at 8:30 a.m. CDT.
Each astronaut onboard will carry a postcard into space from Blue Origin's Club for the Future Foundation, which will give students access to space on the company's rockets.
Davidson will be joined by businessman Marty Allen, SpaceKids Global founder Sharon Hagle, and Tricor International CEO Marc Hagle. Commercial Space Technologies, LLC President Dr. George Nield, Jim Kitchen, president of JimKitchen.org, will also join Davidson in Earth's sub orbit.
Space.com speculated that Davidson might have been given a free ride as everyone but him was noted to be customers.
Davidson was previously reported to be in negotiations with Jeff Bezos to be part of a Blue Origin flight on March 4, per a CNN report. However, it wasn't known when the actor would join other astronauts in suborbital space at the time.
NS-20 Details & History
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket was named after Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to go to space. It is a reusable suborbital rocket system that is 60 feet long and has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities to take astronauts and research payloads to the recognized boundary of space - the Kármán line, per Blue Origin's page on the rocket.
The rocket also has a pressurized crew capsule with room for six people. It was said it is environmentally controlled for control and has the largest windows to be flown into space.
The cabin also has handholds for crew members to move easily during zero-g moments.
A New York Times article mentioned that the rocket would release the capsule at peak altitude. This action would cause the capsule to be suspended in a free fall at a 63-mile altitude, which would give the capsule's passengers around four minutes of weightlessness in microgravity and a view of Earth's horizon at the Kármán line.
The rocket is designed with space tourism in mind, as such, it was made to be reused for future flights to drive down the cost of each launch, per another Space article.
Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin's and Amazon's founder, mentioned in 2021 that Blue Origin aims to help people get to space, according to a separate New York Times article.
