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Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket launches thousands of student letters into space

Also included in the New Shepard payload manifest were the two winning projects of the Art in Space competition, according to Blue Origin.

Blue Origin partnered with rock band OK Go earlier this year for the competition giving middle and high school students the opportunity to send their artwork to space, the company said.

The New Shepard rocket is named after Americas first man in space Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard, according to Blue Origin.

The 60-foot rocket is intended to bring six space travelers in the spacecrafts capsule past the Karman line, roughly 62 miles above the surface of the Earth.

Blue Origin aims to use its reusable rockets to lower the cost of space travel, providing safe, reliable and frequent access to space, according to the company.

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