Watch the Launch

Additional Media

New Shepard Mission NS-18 Webcast

New Shepard’s 18th mission, NS-18, will lift off on Wednesday, October 13, carrying four astronauts, Dr. Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries, Audrey Powers, and W...

NS-18

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

NS-18 is the second crewed New Shepard flight, carrying 4 paying customers.

Updates

SwGustav • Oct. 13, 2021, 3:13 p.m.

Passengers were recovered, successful flight


SwGustav • Oct. 13, 2021, 2:49 p.m.

Liftoff


SwGustav • Oct. 12, 2021, 6:20 p.m.

Adjusting T-0


New Shepard

Family: Blue Origin
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 Blue Origin Details
Specifications
  • Stages
    1
  • Length
    15.0 m
  • Diameter
    3.7 m
  • Fairing Diameter
  • Launch Mass
    75 T
  • Thrust
    490 kN
Family
  • Name
    New Shepard
  • Family
    Blue Origin
  • 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: December 19, 2023
Flights: 9
Landings Attempted: 9
Landings Successful: 9
Previous NS-4 Flights

Landing Information

NS4 successfully landed at Corn Ranch Landing Pad on its fourth 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


Audrey Powers

Tourist - American - ( BO )

Status: Occasional Spaceflight

Date of Birth: Feb. 1, 1976
Age: 48

Chris Boshuizen

Tourist - Australian - ( BO )

Status: Occasional Spaceflight

Date of Birth: June 1, 1977
Age: 46

Glen de Vries

Tourist - American - ( BO )

Status: Deceased

Date of Birth: June 29, 1972
Date of Death: Nov. 11, 2021

William Shatner

Tourist - Canadian - ( BO )

Status: Occasional Spaceflight

Date of Birth: March 22, 1931
Age: 93

Blue Origin

Circle Image
CEO: Jeff Bezos Founded: 2000 Successes: 23 Failures: 1 Pending: 3

Agency Type: Commercial

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

SpaceNews

Blue Origin astronaut dies in plane crash

A biomedical entrepreneur who flew on Blue Origin’s second crewed suborbital spaceflight died in a plane crash Nov. 11.

Blue Origin sends William Shatner to the final frontier

To the Final Frontier: NS-18 shepherds William Shatner, three others to edge of space

Arstechnica

William Shatner safely goes to space and back [Updated]

This flight does not solve any of the problems at Blue Origin, of course.

SpaceNews

Blue Origin launches second crewed New Shepard mission

Blue Origin launched Star Trek actor William Shatner and three others into space on a brief suborbital flight Oct. 13, the second crewed flight of the company’s New Shepard vehicle.

Corn Ranch, Van Horn, TX, USA

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch


Electron
Success
23 hours, 52 minutes ago
Beginning Of The Swarm (ACS3 & NeonSat-1)
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B - Onenui Station, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand

NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) is a technology demonstration mission tasked with deploying a composite boom solar sail. NeonSa…


Falcon 9
Success
1 day ago
Starlink Group 6-53
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Long March 2D
Success
3 days, 22 hours ago
Yaogan 42-02
Launch Complex 3 (LC-3/LA-1) - Xichang Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

The Yaogan 42-02 is a Chinese military “remote sensing” satellite of unknown purposes.


Falcon 9
Success
5 days, 23 hours ago
Starlink Group 6-52
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

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


Falcon 9
Success
1 week ago
Starlink Group 6-51
Launch Complex 39A - Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA

A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Long March 2D
Success
1 week, 2 days ago
SuperView Neo 3-01
Launch Area 4 (SLS-2 / 603) - Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

Commercial Earth observation satellite built by CAST for China Siwei Survey and Mapping Technology Co. Ltd, with 0.5 m resolution over 9 image wavele…


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 4 days ago
Starlink Group 6-49
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.


Falcon 9
Success
1 week, 6 days ago
USSF-62
Space Launch Complex 4E - Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA

First Weather System Follow-on (WSF) satellite. WSF-M (Weather System Follow-on - Microwave) is the next-generation operational environmental sate…


Angara A5/Blok DM-03
Success
1 week, 6 days ago
Vostochny Angara Test Flight
Cosmodrome Site 1A - Vostochny Cosmodrome, Siberia, Russian Federation

First test launch of the Angara A5 launch vehicle from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. The rocket will carry a mass simulator payload.


Falcon 9
Success
2 weeks ago
Starlink Group 6-48
Space Launch Complex 40 - Cape Canaveral, FL, USA

A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.