New Shepard
New Shepard is a fully reusable sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, who became the first American to travel into space and the fifth person to walk on the Moon. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and landings. Additionally, it is also capable of carrying humans and customer payloads into a sub-orbital trajectory.
Function
Launching tourists and cargo on a suborbital trajectory
United States of America
18m (60ft)
3.7m (12.1ft)
75t (officially)
~40t (estimated)
1
Active
24
23
1
22
29 April 2015
19 December 2023
1 BE-3
490 kN (110,000 lbf)
141 seconds
New Shepard consists of a booster rocket and a crew capsule. The capsule can be configured to house up to six passengers, cargo, or a combination of both. The booster rocket is powered by one BE-3PM engine, which sends the capsule above the Kármán line, where passengers and cargo can experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returns to Earth.
The launch vehicle is designed to be fully reusable, with the capsule returning to Earth via three parachutes and a solid rocket motor. The booster lands vertically on a landing pad 3.2 km north of the launch pad. The company has successfully launched and landed the New Shepard launch vehicle 22 times with 1 partial failure deemed successful[1] and 1 failure. The launch vehicle has a length of 15.0 m, a diameter of 3.7 m and a launch mass of 75 T. The BE-3PM engine produces 490 kN of thrust at liftoff.[2]
Flight profile[edit]
The New Shepard is launched 30 miles north of Van Horn, Texas called Launch Site One (LS1) and then performs a powered flight for about 110 seconds, up to an altitude of 40 km (25 mi).
The vehicle then continues climbing due to the capsule's momentum and reaches an apogee above the Kármán Line. After reaching apogee, the vehicle performs a descent and restarts its main engines a few tens of seconds before vertical landing, close to its launch site.[94][95] The total flight duration of the rocket is over 7 minutes.
The crewed variant features a separate crew module that separates close to peak altitude, and the propulsion module performs a powered landing while the crew module lands under three parachutes and a solid rocket motor. Total flight time is around 10 minutes. The crew module can also separate in case of a vehicle malfunction or other emergency using solid propellant separation boosters, then performing a parachute landing.[90][96]
NASA suborbital research payloads[edit]
NASA Suborbital Research Payloads[edit]
"New Shepard offers flights to space over 100 kilometers (62 miles) for payloads inside our cabin or with direct exposure to the space environment. With minutes of high-quality microgravity or partial-G, access to the Kármán Line, and gentle return of payload, New Shepard is transforming access to space research."- New Shepard Payloads, Blueorigin.com
As of March 2011, Blue Origin had submitted the New Shepard reusable launch vehicle for use as an uncrewed rocket for NASA's suborbital reusable launch vehicle (sRLV) solicitation under NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. Blue Origin projects 100 km (62 mi) altitude in flights of approximately ten minutes duration, while carrying an 11.3 kg (25 lb) research payload.[97] By March 2016, Blue Origin noted that they are "due to start flying unaccompanied scientific payloads later [in 2016]."[90] On April 29, 2018, during its eighth flight New Shepard carried the Schmitt Space Communicator SC-1x, a three-pound device developed by Solstar that launched the first commercial wi-fi hotspot service in space and sent the first commercial Twitter message from space.[98][99] NASA provided a part of the $2 million project's funding as a part of its Flight Opportunities program.[100][101]
On 12 September 2022,18 NASA payloads were flying on NS-23[86] when an in-flight failure of the booster's main engine caused an emergency ejection of the payload capsule. The payload capsule landed safely and was recovered whilst the booster was lost.[25]
Involvement with NASA Commercial Crew Development Program[edit]
Blue Origin received US$3.7 million in Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) phase 1 to advance several development objectives of its innovative "pusher" Launch Abort System (LAS) and composite pressure vessel.[102]
In February 2011, with the end of the second ground test nearly complete, the company completed all work envisioned under the phase 1 contract for the pusher escape system. They also "completed work on the other aspect of its award, risk reduction work on a composite pressure vessel" for the vehicle.[103]