Billionaire Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, said Wednesday it was planning on July 20 for its first suborbital tour of its New Shepard spaceship, a milestone in a competition to usher in a new era in private commercial space travel.

Blue Origin also said it will offer the winner of a five-week online auction a seat on the first flight, the proceeds of which will be donated to the space company’s foundation.

The New Shepard rocket-capsule combination was developed to autonomously fly six passengers more than 100 km above the earth into suborbital space, which is high enough to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and the curvature of the planet before the pressurized one to see the standing capsule returns to earth under parachutes.

The capsule has six observation windows, which, according to Blue Origin, are almost three times the height of a Boeing 747 jetliner and the largest ever deployed in space.

“The view will be spectacular,” Ariane Cornell, director of astronaut sales at Blue Origin, told a press conference.

Following its first flight in July, Cornell said Blue Origin would have “a few” more crewed flights before the end of the year. She declined to reveal details of the ticket price, which has been a closely guarded secret within the company for years.

Reuters reported in 2018 that Blue Origin plans to charge passengers at least $ 200,000 for the ride, based on an assessment of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc.’s competing plans. (SPCE.N) and other considerations, although his thinking may have changed.

Wednesday’s announcement follows years of testing and development that included delays.

Cornell said Blue Origin would “love” increasing the frequency of its tourist space flights and adding take-off locations, possibly outside of the US, depending on demand. For July’s flight, the reusable New Shepard Booster will take off and land in West Texas.

Celebrities and uber-rich seem to be the core market for space tourism trips, at least initially. Cornell told reporters the most likely candidates would be “very clear” on our radar.

Only 569 people had ever been in space, she said, adding that “we’re going to change that dramatically”.

However, she declined to say when – or if – Bezos, a lifelong space enthusiast and currently the richest person in the world, will take a trip to New Shepard.

Virgin Galactic also plans to fly private customers in early 2022, after boarding a first flight with Branson later this year.

The zero gravity experience is anchored by the SpaceShipTwo aircraft, and the company has ambitious plans to offer point-to-point travel between distant cities at near-spatial altitudes.

Virgin says it will charge more than $ 250,000 for new reservations but has not yet announced final pricing. Sales will resume after Branson’s flight.

Meanwhile, a high school science professor and aerospace data analyst are part of a crew of four who are planning a launch into orbit from SpaceX by Elon Musk later this year. This is part of a charity drive billed as the first purely civilian spaceflight in history.

Blue Origin has fallen far behind SpaceX in orbital transport, losing SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) to billions of dollars worth of US safety launch contracts beginning in 2022.

But his announcement about space tourism comes from Bezos, of Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O), needed momentum as it protested SpaceX’s $ 2.9 billion contract under NASA’s high-profile program to bring Americans back to the moon in the years to come.

Filings for approval revealed that Bezos sold approximately $ 2 billion worth of Amazon stock this week as part of an agreed trading plan. Bezos, who will step down as CEO in a few months’ time, has dumped shares in the company he founded and announced he will sell $ 1 billion worth of shares to fund Blue Origin projects.

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