Safety, Our Top Mission
Record of Safety
Blue Origin has been flight testing the New Shepard rocket and its redundant safety systems since 2012. The program has had 22 successful consecutive missions including three successful escape tests, showing the crew escape system can activate safely in any phase of flight.
New Shepard Flight History
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Escape Test
October 19, 2012
Successful test of the crew escape system from the pad.
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NS-1
April 29, 2015
First flight of the New Shepard rocket and successful crew capsule mission.
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NS-2
November 23, 2015
Landing of the first booster in history to fly to space and back.
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NS-3
January 22, 2016
First reuse in history of a booster.
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NS-4
April 2, 2016
Successful re-flight of vehicle.
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NS-5
June 19, 2016
Safe capsule landing with one chute out.
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NS-6
October 5, 2016
Successful test of the crew escape system at maximum dynamic pressure (MaxQ).
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NS-7
December 12, 2017
First flight of next vehicle.
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NS-8
April 29, 2018
Successful re-flight of vehicle.
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NS-9
July 18, 2018
Successful test of crew escape system in space.
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NS-10
January 23, 2019
Successful re-flight of vehicle.
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NS-11
May 2, 2019
Successful re-flight of vehicle.
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NS-12
December 11, 2019
100th payload launch to space.
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NS-13
October 13, 2020
NASA lunar landing sensor demo on outside of rocket; successful re-flight of vehicle.
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NS-14
January 14, 2021
First flight of next vehicle.
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NS-15
April 14, 2021
Second successful flight of vehicle.
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NS-16
July 20, 2021
On July 20, Blue Origin successfully completed New Shepard’s first human flight with four private citizens onboard.
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NS-17
August 26, 2021
Successful re-flight of NASA lunar landing sensor demo on outside of rocket; successful re-flight of vehicle.
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NS-18
October 13, 2021
Blue Origin successfully completed its second human spaceflight with four private citizens on board New Shepard.
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NS-19
December 11, 2021
Blue Origin's third human flight, and first with six astronauts on-board New Shepard.
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NS-20
March 31, 2022
Blue Origin successfully completed its fourth human spaceflight and 20th overall flight on New Shepard.
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NS-21
June 4, 2022
This mission was the fifth human flight for the New Shepard program and the 21st in its history.
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NS-22
August 4, 2022
Successful completion of the sixth human spaceflight and 22nd flight for the New Shepard program.
FULL ENVELOPE
Crew Escape System
Drawing from the Mercury and Apollo programs, New Shepard is equipped with a crew escape system that pushes the capsule away from the booster in the unlikely event an issue is detected. The system has been tested three times successfully from the launch pad, mid-flight, and in the vacuum of space, demonstrating the system can activate safely in any phase of flight.
CHUTES OUT
Redundant Landing Systems
A robust landing safety design with multiple redundancies has been engineered into the capsule from the beginning and tested throughout the program. The bottom of the capsule has a retro-thrust system that expels a pillow of air so the capsule lands at just 1.6 km/h (1 mph) in the West Texas desert. For added safety and redundancy, the capsule can land with two of its three chutes out, and the seats have been designed to flex and absorb g-forces in the unlikely event of an off-nominal landing.