New Shepard is a fully reusable sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, for being the first American to travel into space, also being the fifth person to walk on the Moon. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and landings. Additionally, it is also capable of carrying humans and customer payloads into a sub-orbital trajectory.
New Shepard consists of a launch rocket and a crew capsule. The capsule can be configured to house up to six passengers, cargo, or a combination of both. The launch rocket is powered by one BE-3PM engine, which sends the capsule above the Kármán line, where passengers and cargo can experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returns to Earth.
The launch vehicle is designed to be fully reusable, with the capsule returning to Earth via three parachutes and a solid rocket motor. The rocket lands vertically on a landing pad 3.2km north of the launch pad. The company has successfully launched and landed the New Shepard launch vehicle 29 times with 1 partial failure deemed successful[1] and 1 failure. The launch vehicle has a length of 19.2 m, a diameter of 3.8 m and a launch mass of 35000 kg. The BE-3PM engine produces 490 kN of thrust at liftoff.[2]
On January 30, 2026, Blue Origin announced further New Shepard launches would be paused for at least two years to allow the company to shift resources to their Blue Moon series of landers in support of the Artemis Program.[3]
History
The first development vehicle of the New Shepard development program was a sub-scale demonstration vehicle named Goddard that was built in 2006 following earlier engine development efforts by Blue Origin. Goddard was assembled at the Blue Origin facility in Kent, Washington, United States and made its first flight on November 13, 2006.[4] A second test flight was scheduled for December 2, but never took place.
According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records, two further flights were performed by Goddard. Blue Engine 1, or BE-1, was the first rocket engine developed by Blue Origin and was used in the company's Goddard development vehicle. On the path to developing the New Shepard launch vehicle, a crew capsule was also needed, and design was begun on a space capsule in the early 2000s. One development milestone along the way became public. On October 19, 2012, Blue Origin conducted a successful pad escape of a full-scale suborbital crew capsule at its West Texas launch site. For the test, the capsule fired its pusher escape motor and launched from a launch vehicle simulator. The Crew Capsule traveled to an altitude of 2307 ft under active thrust vector control before descending safely by parachute to a soft landing 1630 ft downrange.[5][6]
New Shepard vehicles
New Shepard propulsion modules
As of 2024, there have been five propulsion modules built. They are NS1, NS2, NS3, NS4, and NS5.
New Shepard 1
The first flight of the full-scale New Shepard vehicle was NS1,[14] also called "Tail 1"[15] and was conducted on April 29, 2015, during which an altitude of 93.5 km was attained. While the test flight itself was deemed a success, and the capsule was successfully recovered via parachute landing, the rocket crash landed and was not recovered due to a failure of hydraulic pressure in the vehicle control system during descent.[16][17]
Flight statistics
Launch payload
Capsule used
Launch outcomes
Landing outcomes
Flight list
Multiple Fliers
Two Flights
- Evan Dick — NS-19 and NS-21
- Lane Bess —
Design
New Shepard is a fully reusable, vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) space vehicle composed of two principal parts: a pressurized crew capsule and a launch rocket that Blue Origin often calls a booster or propulsion module.[17] The New Shepard is controlled entirely by on-board computers, without ground control[7] or a human pilot.[95]
Flight profile
New Shepard is launched 48 km north of Van Horn, Texas, at Launch Site One (LS1), and conducts a powered flight for about 110 seconds, up to an altitude of 40 km.
The rocket and capsule then continue coasting upwards due to their momentum, reaching an apogee just above the Kármán Line at 100 km. Near this peak altitude, the crew capsule separates from the rocket. As the rocket nears the ground, its air brakes deploy and the engines restart as onboard computers autonomously bring the rocket for a vertical landing at the landing pad, where it deploys its four landing legs.[105][106] The crew capsule descends afterward under three parachutes and a solid rocket motor. The crew capsule can also separate in case of a vehicle malfunction or other emergency using solid propellant separation boosters, then perform a parachute landing.[95][107] The total flight duration of the rocket is over 7 minutes, while the total flight time for the crew capsule is around 10 minutes.
NASA suborbital research payloads
As of March 2011, Blue Origin had submitted the New Shepard reusable launch vehicle for use as an uncrewed rocket for NASA's suborbital reusable launch vehicle (sRLV) solicitation under NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. Blue Origin projects 100 km altitude in flights of approximately ten minutes duration, while carrying an 11.3 kg research payload.[108] By March 2016, Blue Origin noted that they are "due to start flying unaccompanied scientific payloads later [in 2016]."[95] On April 29, 2018, during its eighth flight New Shepard carried the Schmitt Space Communicator SC-1x, a three-pound device developed by Solstar that launched the first commercial Wi-Fi hotspot service in space and sent the first commercial Twitter message from space.[109][110] NASA provided a part of the $2 million project's funding as a part of its Flight Opportunities program.[111][112]
External links
- Blue's Rocket Clues (MSNBC's Cosmic Log, June 24, 2006)
- Future & Fantasy Spaceships Primed for Launch Commercial, Orbital Spacecraft (see p. 8)
- Latest Blue Origin news on the Space Fellowship
- Secretive Spaceship Builder's Plans Hinted at in NASA Agreement Commercial Crew Development Blue Origin (2 new craft images)
References
- Caleb Jones. New Shepard Space Launch Now, retrieved July 2, 2023^
- Human Spaceflight Launch Service Providers 2022 New Space Economy, May 21, 2023, retrieved January 29, 2025^
- Blue Origin to Pause New Shepard Flights for No Less Than Two Years