Blue Origin, owned by American billionaire Jeff Bezos, announced that it has postponed the launch of its New Shepherd spacecraft to next Wednesday.
Thus, the arrival of William Shatner, star of the famous "Star Trek" series, to the edge of space is postponed by one day.
A statement on Blue Origin’s website said New Shepard NS-18 has met all mission requirements, and the astronauts have started their training. “Weather is the only gating factor for the launch window,” according to the statement, which is signed with the company motto “Gradatim Ferociter” (Latin for “step by step, ferociously”).
Shatner, best known for his role as Captain Kirk on "Star Trek", will be among the four-man crew aboard the NS-18 suborbital mission.
The 90-year-old actor is taking this flight as a guest of Blue Origin, but the company said it also sold tickets worth nearly $100 million to other customers.
The company, which succeeded in launching Bezos into space on July 20, added that the mission operations team confirmed that the vehicle met all launch conditions, and that the astronauts began their training today, Sunday.
Fierce space battle
The flight of Bezos, who is 57, took about 10 minutes and 20 seconds.
It came nine days after Briton Richard Branson boarded the first successful flight of rival space tourism company Virgin Galactic, from New Mexico.
There is a fierce competitive battle between Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic to take advantage of the lucrative space tourism market, which Swiss bank UBS estimates will be worth $3 billion a year within a decade.
Branson reached space first, but Bezos' flight reached an altitude of 100 kilometers, higher than Branson's flight, which was at an altitude of 86 kilometers, in what experts call the first mission of its kind in the world to be launched with a crew without astronauts.