It carried into space American billionaire and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, pilot and Mercury 13 member Wally Funk, and Dutch student Oliver Daemen.

The flight commenced from Blue Origin's Corn Ranch sub-orbital launch site in West Texas aboard the third flight of New Shepard booster NS4 and the spacecraft RSS First Step, both having previously flown on NS-14 and NS-15 earlier in the year.

The mission became the first fully automated flight with civilian passengers,[6] as well as the first multi-person, internationally recognized sub-orbital spaceflight.

[2][7] Originally, the anonymous winner (later revealed as Justin Sun[8]) of a US$28 million auction held by Blue Origin in support of its Club for the Future program was to be the fourth crewmember on RSS First Step.

[7][9] However, the anonymous winner had unspecified scheduling conflicts and was re-manifested for a future New Shepard flight; Oliver Daemen took the vacated position.