Blue Origin New Shepard
New Shepard's maiden flight on 29 April 2015
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| Function | Suborbital launch vehicle |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Blue Origin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Size | |
| Stages | 1 |
| Capacity | |
| Payload to Kármán line | unknown |
| Launch history | |
| Status | active |
| Launch sites | Corn Ranch |
| Total launches | 6 |
| Successes | 6 |
| Landings | 5 |
| First flight | 29 April 2015 |
| First stage | |
| Engines | 1 BE-3 |
| Thrust | 490 kN (110,000 lbf) |
| Burn time | 110 seconds |
| Fuel | LH2 / LOX |
The New Shepard reusable launch system is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL),suborbital manned rocket that is being developed by Blue Origin as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism. Blue Origin is owned by Amazon.com founder and businessman Jeff Bezos and Rob Meyerson.
The name New Shepard makes reference to the first American astronaut in space, Alan Shepard, one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts, who ascended to space on a suborbital trajectory similar to that planned for New Shepard.
Prototype engine and vehicle flights began in 2006, while full-scale engine development started in the early 2010s and was complete by 2015. Unmanned test flights of the complete New Shepard vehicle (propulsion module and space capsule) began in 2015. Flights with test passengers are planned for late 2017, with commercial passenger flights to begin in 2018.
On 23 November 2015, after reaching 100.5 km (330,000 ft) altitude (outer space), the New Shepard booster successfully performed a powered vertical soft landing, the first time a booster rocket had returned from space to make a successful vertical landing. Three additional test flights were made with the same vehicle in the first six months of 2016. A fifth and final flight of this propulsion module occurred in October 2016 in order to undertake a flight test of the passenger module in-flight abort system. The first crewed test flights are planned for Q2 2017.
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