Benzinga | Jun 12, 2021 01:33PM EDT

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Auctions Seat On First Spaceflight For $28M

* Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, held a live auction on Saturday for a seat on its first spaceflight trip next month.

* The live auction began at 1 p.m. EDT and lasted a few minutes. The bidding began at $4.8 million. The winning bid was that of $28 million. The name of the winner is expected to be disclosed in the coming weeks.

* The auction kicked off on May 5 with sealed bids and continued till June 10.

* According to Blue Origin, it got entries from more than 6,000 people from 143 countries.

* The winner will then get one of the six seats on Blue Origin's first flight, which is currently set for July 20, and fly on the spacecraft with Jeff Bezos and his brother for 11 minutes. It isn't clear if the other three seats will be occupied.

* The trip in the 60-foot-tall suborbital rocket will take the crew 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.

* The Blue Origin launch is set for Launch Site One in Texas.

* Bezos's space exploration company competes with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (NYSE:SPCE) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk's SpaceX.

* The money raised from this auction will go towards Blue Origin's foundation, which the company says will contribute towards the development of life in space and inspire future generations to pursue careers in science.

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Photo courtesy of Blue Origin.