Mikaela Benthaus from Germany achieved a historic feat on December 20, 2025, becoming the first astronaut to go into space in a wheelchair.
According to the American journal, 33-year-old German engineer Mikaela Benthaus travelled into space on Saturday aboard the New Shepherd rocket of billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin. She, along with five other passengers, left the western region of the US state of Texas and reached an altitude of 105 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. Where she crossed the internationally recognized limit of space (Carmine Line). The entire flight lasted about 10 minutes.
Mikaela, 33, is an aerospace engineer who works for the European Space Agency (ESA). She was disabled in an accident in 2018, but she continued to fight to fulfil her dream. She left her wheelchair on the ground during the flight, and during her stay in space, she experienced ‘weightlessness’ for about three minutes without gravity, where she floated in the capsule.
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