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Kenneth Lafferty Hess

American - (BO)

Occasional Spaceflight

Date of Birth: Jan. 22, 1953
Age: 72


Ken is a software engineer and entrepreneur who shaped today's technology-based family history industry when he developed the Family Tree Maker product line in the 1990s. The company was acquired by Ancestry.com in 2003. In 2001, Ken gave back by founding Science Buddies, a K-12 nonprofit created to level the playing field and improve STEM literacy by inspiring students through free, personalized, hands-on projects in all areas of science, including space exploration. Science Buddies has reached one-quarter billion users. Ken’s lifelong passion for space exploration is in his DNA, with numerous early American pioneers in his mother’s lineage and many engineers and technicians in his father’s.

New Shepard | NS-25

Blue Origin | United States of America
Corn Ranch, Van Horn, TX, USA
May 19, 2024, 2:35 p.m.
Status: Success
Mission:

Twenty-fifth flight of New Shepard carrying six passengers.

Suborbital NS-4 - Flight Proven ( ) Corn Ranch Landing Pad, West Texas
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CEO: Jeff Bezos

Blue Origin is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos with its headquarters in Kent, Washington. The company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal to dramatically lower costs and increase reliability. Blue Origin currently launches its New Shepard sub-orbital vehicle from its West Texas launch site, they are currently constructing a launch pad for their orbital vehicle New Glenn at Cape Canaveral LC-36.


Soyuz 2.1a
Success
1 day ago
Soyuz MS-28
31/6 - Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

Soyuz MS-28 will carry three cosmonauts and one astronaut to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome…


Nuri
Success
1 day, 17 hours ago
CAS500-3
LC-2 - Naro Space Center, South Korea

CAS500-3 is a South Korean Earth observation satellites to be used by the Ministry of Science and ICT for space technology verification and space sci…


Angara 1.2
Success
2 days, 20 hours ago
Kosmos (Unknown Payload)
35/1 - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Note: Payload identity and Cosmos series numbering not confirmed. Unknown Payload(s) for the Russian military.


Long March 2
Success
3 days, 5 hours ago
Shenzhou 22
Launch Area 4 (SLS-1 / 921) - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Shenzhou 22 (Chinese: 神舟二十二号) will be the 22nd flight of the Shenzhou program. The spacecraft will be launched without crew to replace Shenzhou 20 th…


Falcon 9
Success
5 days, 1 hour ago
Starlink Group 11-30
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

A batch of 28 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.