New Shepard
NS-31
Meet New Shepard
All rockets take off; not all rockets land. Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, New Shepard is Blue Origin’s fully reusable, suborbital rocket system built for human flight from the beginning. During the 11-minute journey, astronauts soar past the Kármán line (100 km/62 miles), the internationally recognized boundary of space, experiencing several minutes of weightlessness and witnessing life-changing views of Earth. The vehicle is fully autonomous—there are no pilots.
Crew Capsule
Pressurized crew capsule with room for six people, environmentally controlled for comfort, and among the largest windows to have flown in space.
Ring & Wedge Fins
Aerodynamically designed to stabilize the booster and reduce fuel use on its flight back to Earth.
Drag Brakes
Deploy from the ring fin to reduce the booster's speed by half on its descent from space.
BE-3PM Engine
Propels the rocket to space and restarts to uniquely slow the booster down to just 6 mph (9.7 km/h) for a controlled pinpoint landing on the pad.
Aft Fins
Stabilize the vehicle during ascent, steer it back to the landing pad on descent, and guide the rocket through airspeeds over Mach 3.
Landing Gear
Deploys for touchdown.
The Experience
The Capsule
Every astronaut has a window seat in the spacious and pressurized crew capsule. The cabin seats six and is environmentally controlled for comfort.
Safety
Our Highest Priority
New Shepard’s development flight test program concluded in 2021 following 16 consecutive successful flight tests, including three successful capsule escape tests, demonstrating that the crew escape system can activate safely during any phase of flight.
For the Benefit of Earth
Protecting our Planet
Building a road to space starts with reusable vehicles. The New Shepard system has been designed for operational reusability and minimal maintenance between flights to decrease the cost of access to space and reduce waste. Nearly 99% of New Shepard's dry mass is reused, including the booster, capsule, ring fin, engine, landing gear, and parachutes. New Shepard's BE-3PM engine is fueled by highly efficient liquid oxygen and hydrogen. During flight, the only byproduct of New Shepard's engine combustion is water vapor with no carbon emissions. Read more here.
