Watch the Launch

NS-16

Circle Image

Overview

Destination: Suborbital
Mission: Tourism

Suborbital West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch Corn Ranch, Van Horn, TX, USA
NS-4 - Corn Ranch Landing Pad, West Texas

First crewed flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket.

Updates

spacevogel • July 20, 2021, 1:25 p.m.

New Shepard successfully completed its first crewed flight


spacevogel • July 20, 2021, 1:12 p.m.

Liftoff!


New Shepard

Family:
Configuration:

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.

See Details
Specifications
  • Stages
    1
  • Length
    15.0 m
  • Diameter
    3.7 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    75.0 T
  • Thrust
    490.0 kN
Family
  • Name
    New Shepard
  • Family
  • Variant
  • Alias
  • Full Name
    New Shepard
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
  • Low Earth Orbit
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity

Booster Info


NS-4

Status: Active


Type: Core
Flight Proven: Yes
First Flight: January 14, 2021
Last Flight: January 22, 2026
Flights: 17
Landings Attempted: 17
Landings Successful: 17
Previous NS-4 Flights

Landing Information

NS4 successfully landed at Corn Ranch Landing Pad after its third flight.

Result: Successful Return to Launch Site landing at Corn Ranch Landing Pad, West Texas.

RSS First Step


Active Human Rated Crew On-board: 4 Crew Capacity: 6
Destination: Suborbital
Serial Number: 2.0-2

First Blue Origin New Shepard Crew Capsule 2.0 to carry human passengers. This capsule is outfitted with improvements to environmental features such as acoustics and temperature regulation inside the capsule, crew display panels, and speakers with a microphone and push-to-talk button at each seat.

Crew Capsule 2.0 Details

Crew


Jeff Bezos

Tourist - configurations.Country.None - ( BO )

Status: Occasional Spaceflight

Date of Birth: Jan. 12, 1964
Age: 62

Mark Bezos

Tourist - configurations.Country.None - ( BO )

Status: Occasional Spaceflight

Date of Birth: May 17, 1968
Age: 58

Oliver Daemen

Tourist - configurations.Country.None - ( BO )

Status: Occasional Spaceflight

Date of Birth: Aug. 20, 2002
Age: 23

Wally Funk

Tourist - configurations.Country.None - ( BO )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: Feb. 1, 1938
Date of Death: July 8, 2026

Blue Origin

Blue Origin

(BO)

CEO: Jeff Bezos Founded: 2000 Successes: 39 Failures: 2 Pending: 4

Agency Type:

Blue Origin is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos with its headquarters in Kent, Washington. The company is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal to dramatically lower costs and increase reliability. Blue Origin currently launches its New Shepard sub-orbital vehicle from its West Texas launch site, they are currently constructing a launch pad for their orbital vehicle New Glenn at Cape Canaveral LC-36.

INFO WIKI

Related News

Arstechnica

Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

“What we know about Jeff Bezos is that he doesn’t like losing."

Spaceflight Now

Bezos flies to space on Blue Origin’s first crew launch

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, his brother, a pioneering female pilot, and an 18-year-old Dutch student launched to the edge of space Tuesday on a 66-mile-high suborbital flight aboard his company’s New Shepard rocket, the latest achievement i…

SpaceNews

New Shepard astronauts rave about suborbital spaceflight experience as Bezos faces backlash

Jeff Bezos and the others who were on the first crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle hailed the experience as better than expected, but Bezos is facing a backlash for spending part of his extreme wealth on space.

SpaceNews

Blue Origin launches Bezos on first crewed New Shepard flight

Blue Origin performed its first crewed New Shepard launch July 20, sending company founder Jeff Bezos and three other people on a suborbital flight.

NASA Spaceflight

Blue Origin launches first crewed flight with four crew, including founder Jeff Bezos and “Mercury 13” aviatrix Wally Funk

Blue Origin has flown a crew of four onboard a New Shepard rocket on an 11-minute long suborbital spaceflight. It was the first time humans fly onboard the vehicle, making its sixteenth flight since its debut in April 2015.

Corn Ranch, Van Horn, TX, USA

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch


Kinetica 1
Success
1 day, 3 hours ago
5 satellites
Launch Area 130 - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Share-ride of 5 commercial Earth observation and technology demonstration satellites to SSO, including SpaceTY's TY-48. Details TBD.


Long March 3B/E
Success
1 day, 14 hours ago
Tianlian 2-06
Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) - Xichang Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Tianlian is a Chinese data tracking and relay communications geostationary satellite series. The TL 2 (Tian Lian 2) satellites represent the second g…


Gravity-1
Success
2 days, 23 hours ago
9 satellites
Yellow Sea (launch location 5) - Haiyang Oriental Spaceport

Carried 9 satellites on a share-ride to sun-synchronous orbit. Details TBD.


Falcon 9
Success
3 days, 5 hours ago
MRV-1
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA

The Northrop Grumman/SpaceLogistics MRV-1 is a mission extension payload including a mission robotic vehicle (MRV) and multiple mission extension pod…


Falcon 9
Success
3 days, 12 hours ago
Starlink Group 17-39
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

A batch of 24 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Soyuz 2.1b
Success
5 days, 9 hours ago
16 x Rassvet-3
43/4 (43R) - Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

Note: Payload identities uncertain. Batch of 16 Rassvet-3 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites for the Russian Byuro-1440 (Bureau 1440) conste…


Vikram-I
Success
6 days, 20 hours ago
Demo Flight
Satish Dhawan Space Centre First Launch Pad - Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India

First launch of Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-I launch vehicle. This first launch will carry 4 payloads: - Grahaa Space's SOLARAS S3 satellite - C…


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 1 day ago
SDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer E
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

Tranche 1 Transport Layer E is one of six missions by the United States Space Force Space Development Agency (SDA) for the Proliferated Warfighter Sp…


Soyuz 2.1a
Success
1 week, 3 days ago
Soyuz MS-29
31/6 - Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

Soyuz MS-29 will carry three cosmonauts and one astronaut to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome…


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 3 days ago
Starlink Group 10-45
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA

A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.