AstroAccess, an organization dedicated to promoting disability inclusion in space exploration, announced today that they will be flying a second cohort of Disabled Ambassadors on a Zero Gravity Corporation flight to experience weightlessness and investigate microgravity accessibility solutions later this year. This follows the historic inaugural flight of twelve individuals in October 2021.  

The AstroAccess 2022 flight costs have been generously sponsored through a philanthropic donation from Dylan Taylor, a pioneer and visionary in the space exploration industry. Mr. Taylor supported AstroAccess as part of his Buy One, Give One pledge when he flew aboard the commercial Blue Origin New Shepard Mission NS-19 flight last December. The Buy One, Give One pledge is a call for all commercial astronauts to consider a set of gifts that will pay it forward and support organizations here on Earth. “I am thrilled to be working with AstroAccess and encourage others to join me in supporting its vital mission to make space exploration accessible for everyone,” says Mr. Taylor.

In addition to his generous support of AstroAccess, Mr. Taylor supported 4 other organizations: Edesia Nutrition, The Brooke Owens Fellowship, The Patti Grace Smith Fellowship, and Space for Humanity.

“We are so excited to make our official announcement of AstroAccess Flight 2 - our second fully chartered Zero-G flight,” says Anna Voelker, Executive Director of AstroAccess and SciAccess, Inc. “We are incredibly grateful to Dylan for helping make this possible while also championing an incredible pledge that we hope others will follow.”

AstroAccess plans to conduct Flight 2 in the later part of 2022 and plans to fly a combination of new and previous Ambassadors on its upcoming flight. AstroAccess will be opening applications for new Ambassador candidates TODAY, April 26! The application to be a Flight 2 Ambassador will be open until June 13, 2022. You can apply here today! 

Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, an AstroAccess Flight 1 Ambassador and member of the leadership team, said, “I am so excited to welcome new Ambassadors into our team. I look forward to working with them on new experiment tasks based on our learnings from Flight 1, which was a life-changing experience for me.”

More details about AstroAccess can be found on our website at https://astroaccess.org/. Information can also be found by following Mission: AstroAccess on your favorite social media site.

Image Credit: A photo of the night sky is in the background - dark blue with various white stars and a lighter blue and pink cosmic cloud across the center. The words “ Proud to Support” are written in all caps, smaller text in white. Below that is the AstroAccess logo - a solid triangle with a cutout rocket shape in the middle, originating from the bottom flat edge of the triangle. On the left side of the rocket, cutout is the braille character ‘M’. The braille character ‘A’  makes the window of the rocket. A final braille character ‘A’ is cut out to the right of the rocket.