Blue Origin, the space company owned by Jeff Bezos, has successfully completed its 14th human spaceflight, marking the 34th overall mission under its New Shepard program. The flight took place on Sunday, August 3, 2025, from Launch Site One in West Texas, lifting off at 6:13 PM IST. The mission, known as NS-34, carried six crew members, including Arvinder Singh Bahal, a real estate investor born in Agra, India.
With the completion of this journey, Blue Origin has now flown 75 people above the Kármán line, the internationally accepted boundary of space.
Also known as Arvi, Bahal was born on October 13, 1945, in Agra and raised near the Taj Mahal. He joined the National Defence Academy in 1962 with hopes of joining the army but had to leave after a polo accident led to partial hearing loss. After that, he spent nearly four years working on a Scottish-owned tea plantation in Darjeeling.
In 1970, he entered the garment manufacturing business near Delhi. He first travelled to the United States in 1975 on a business trip, and within a few years, he secured a Green Card and later became a US citizen in 1979.
Over the past 45 years, Bahal built businesses across multiple industries, including fashion, sportswear, hospitality, and real estate. He lives in Beverly, Massachusetts, with his wife Pamela, whom he married in 1979. The couple has two children and four grandchildren.
Known for his passion for travel and adventure, Bahal has visited nearly every country in the world and has journeyed to the North Pole and South Pole. He holds a private pilot’s licence and has also trained in flying helicopters.
His love for documenting his travels has taken him to some of the most remote places on earth, including Patagonia, Greenland, the Poles, and several deserts. He has skydived over Mount Everest and the Pyramids of Giza and speaks six languages.
The rest of the NS-34 crew included Gokhan Erdem from Turkey, a businessman and board member of Erdem Holding; Deborah Martorell from Puerto Rico, a meteorologist and journalist known for her work in space and environmental reporting; Lionel Pitchford, an Englishman living in Spain who runs a nonprofit and orphanage in Nepal; James Russell, an American entrepreneur who had already flown once with Blue Origin in 2024; and HE Justin Sun, the Ambassador and former Grenada WTO representative known for his work in crypto, investment, and philanthropy.
The entire flight lasted about 11 minutes, and all six members safely crossed the boundary of space before returning to Earth.
