Michaela Benthaus to Become First Wheelchair User on Blue Origin Suborbital Flight NS-37

Blue Origin has announced the crew for its upcoming New Shepard mission, designated NS-37, highlighting a significant development in commercial space accessibility. Among the six individuals slated for the suborbital journey is Aerospace Engineer Michaela (Michi) Benthaus, who is set to become the first wheelchair user to fly aboard the New Shepard vehicle.

The NS-37 mission will be the 37th flight in the New Shepard program and the 16th crewed flight overall for the vehicle. The flight is scheduled to cross the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space at 100 kilometers (62 miles) above Earth. Blue Origin officially announced the crew on December 3, 2025, with the launch date currently pending announcement, targeting a window in December 2025 or early 2026.

Benthaus, an aerospace and mechatronics engineer at the European Space Agency (ESA), has maintained a career focused on scientific collaboration for interplanetary exploration. Her personal journey includes a significant spinal cord injury sustained in a 2018 mountain biking accident, which impacted her mobility. Despite this, her commitment to space exploration continued, evidenced by her participation in a Zero-G research flight in 2022 and an analog astronaut mission in Poland in 2024.

The six-person crew for NS-37 reflects the diverse backgrounds increasingly common in private spaceflight. Alongside Benthaus, the crew includes Joey Hyde, a physicist and quantitative investor recently retired from a prominent hedge fund; Hans Koenigsmann, a German-American aerospace engineer with two decades of experience at SpaceX; Neal Milch, an executive and entrepreneur who chairs the board of trustees at Jackson Laboratory; Adonis Pouroulis, a mining engineer and investor; and Jason Stansell, a dedicated space enthusiast focused on science education.

The New Shepard program has demonstrated an increasing flight cadence throughout 2025, with previous crewed missions including NS-36 on October 8, 2025, and NS-34 in August 2025. To date, Blue Origin has flown 86 people (representing 80 unique individuals) above the Kármán line. A typical New Shepard suborbital flight lasts between 10 and 12 minutes from liftoff to capsule landing, operating from Launch Site One in West Texas.

Benthaus' inclusion marks a notable step toward broader inclusivity in commercial space tourism and research initiatives, challenging traditional prerequisites for space participation. The mission continues Blue Origin’s objective of normalizing human spaceflight through its fully reusable rocket system.