Kenneth Lafferty Hess
American - (BO)
Occasional Spaceflight
Date of Birth: Jan. 22, 1953
Age: 73
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.
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.
Falcon 9
Starlink Group 17-33
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USAA batch of 25 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Long March 2F/G
Chinese Reusable Space Vehicle
Launch Area 91 (SLS-1 / 921) - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China4th flight of the Chinese spaceplane capable of returning to Earth.
Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat-M
Kosmos (Unknown Payload)
43/4 (43R) - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian FederationUnknown classified payload(s) for the Russian military.
Falcon 9
Starlink Group 17-32
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USAA batch of 25 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Long March 2C
AlSat 3B
Launch Area 94 (SLS-2 / 603) - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of ChinaEarth observation satellite built by China's CAST for the Algerian Space Agency.
