New Shepard | NS-7

New Shepard | NS-8

New Shepard | NS-9

New Shepard | NS-10

New Shepard | NS-11

New Shepard | NS-12

New Shepard | NS-13

New Shepard | NS-17

New Shepard | NS-23

Corn Ranch Landing Pad, West Texas

Return to Launch Site

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.

Blue Origin

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.

(Blue Origin) BE-3

New Shepard

Twenty-third flight of New Shepard carrying 36 science and research payloads along with tens of thousands of postcards from Club For Future.

NS-23

Suborbital

Corn Ranch, USA

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch

Either the launch vehicle did not reach orbit, or the payload(s) failed to separate.

Launch Failure

New Shepard | NS-14

New Shepard | NS-15

New Shepard | NS-16

New Shepard | NS-18

New Shepard | NS-19

New Shepard | NS-20

New Shepard | NS-21

New Shepard | NS-22

NS-22 is the sixth crewed New Shepard flight, carrying six passengers.

NS-22

Coby Cotton

Retired

Private

Mário Ferreira

Vanessa O’Brien

Clint Kelly III

Sara Sabry

Steve Young

Crew Capsule 2.0

Crew Capsule 2.0-M8

The launch vehicle successfully inserted its payload(s) into the target orbit(s).

Launch Successful

NS-21 is the fifth crewed New Shepard flight, carrying six passengers.

NS-21

NS-21 Patch

Evan Dick

Katya Echazarreta

Hamish Harding

Victor Correa Hespanha

Jaison Robinson

Victor Vescovo

NS-20 is the fourth crewed New Shepard flight, carrying six passengers.

NS-20

NS-20 Patch

Marty Allen

Sharon Hagle

Marc Hagle

Jim Kitchen

George Nield

Gary Lai

NS-19 is the third crewed New Shepard flight, carrying two honorary guests and four paying customers.

NS-19

Laura Shepard Churchley

Michael Strahan

Dylan Taylor

Lane Bess

Cameron Bess

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

NS-18

Glen de Vries

Deceased

Chris Boshuizen

William Shatner

Audrey Powers

Seventeenth flight of New Shepard. It will carry a second NASA lunar landing technology demonstration on the exterior of the booster, 18 commercial payloads inside the crew capsule, and an art installation on the exterior of the capsule.

NS-17

NS-17 BO Mission Patch

Crew Capsule 2.0-M7

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

NS-16

NS-16 BO Mission Patch

Jeff Bezos

Mark Bezos

Wally Funk

Oliver Daemen

Fifteenth flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket.

During the mission, astronaut operational exercises will be conducted in preparation for human space flight. The primary operations will entail Blue Origin personnel standing in as astronauts entering into the capsule prior to launch. These astronauts will climb the launch tower, get into their seats, buckle their harnesses, and conduct a communications check from their seat with CAPCOM, the Capsule Communicator. The tower operations team will prepare the capsule cabin for launch and then briefly close the capsule hatch. The astronauts will then exit the capsule prior to launch. 

Post-landing, the astronauts will get inside the capsule to rehearse hatch opening, and exiting the capsule at the landing site.  

Inside the capsule during the flight will be Mannequin Skywalker, along with more than 25,000 postcards on behalf of Club for the Future, Blue Origin’s nonprofit organization

NS-15

NS-15 Patch

Mannequin Skywalker

Active

Non-Human

For this mission, the New Shepard crew capsule will be outfitted with upgrades for the astronaut experience as the program nears human space flight. The upgrades include 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. The mission will also test a number of astronaut communication and safety alert systems. The capsule will be outfitted with six seats, including one occupied by Mannequin Skywalker.

NS-14

NS-14 Patch

This will be the 13th New Shepard mission and the 7th consecutive flight for this particular vehicle (a record), demonstrating its operational reusability. 

New Shepard will fly 12 commercial payloads to space and back on this mission, including the Deorbit, Descent, and Landing Sensor Demonstration with NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate under a Tipping Point partnership. This is the first payload to fly mounted on the exterior of a New Shepard booster rather than inside the capsule, opening the door to a wide range of future high-altitude sensing, sampling, and exposure payloads.

NS-13

NS-13 Patch

The 12th flight of New Shepard will contain commercial payloads and postcards from the nonprofit organisation 'Club for the Future'.

NS-12

Crew Capsule 2.0-M6

New Shepard flight 11 will fly 38 microgravity research payloads to space.

NS-11

NS-11 Patch

Crew Capsule 2.0-M5

New Shepard flight 10 will feature 9 NASA-sponsored payloads via the NASA Flight opportunity program.

NS-10

NS-10 Patch

Crew Capsule 2.0-M4

The third commercial flight for Blue Origin. NS-9 carried various payloads on a sub-orbital flight. It also tested the capsule escape rockets at high altitude.

NS-9

NS-9 Patch

Crew Capsule 2.0-M3

NS-8 is Blue Origin's second commercial flight. It carried payloads from various customers on a sub-orbital launch for 3 minutes of microgravity.

NS-8

Crew Capsule 2.0-M2

NS-7 is Blue Origins first commercial flight. The payloads included 12 experiments conducted in 3 minutes of microgravity dedicated to medical and earth science.

NS-7

Crew Capsule 2.0-M1

New Shepard | NS-2

New Shepard | NS-3

New Shepard | NS-4

New Shepard | NS-5

New Shepard | NS-6

The 6th flight for Blue Origin, NS-6 will test an in-flight abort scenario for the capsule.

NS-6

Crew Capsule 1

Crew Capsule 1-M6

Fifth flight for Blue Origin. The NS-5 mission successfully landed the core stage and tested a capsule landing with one parachute cut.

NS-5

Crew Capsule 1-M5

The fourth flight for Blue Origin. The capsule reached an apogee of 103.8 kilometers.

NS-4

Crew Capsule 1-M4

The third test flight of the New Shepard vehicle. It is the first re-use for Blue Origin.

NS-3

Crew Capsule 1-M3

The first flight of the New Shepard 2 booster. The capsule reached an apogee of 100.5 kilometers.

NS-2

Crew Capsule 1-M2

New Shepard | NS-1

The first flight of the New Shepard 1 booster. The capsule reached an apogee of 93.5 kilometers.

NS-1

Crew Capsule 1-M1

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The Scout family of rockets were were American launch vehicles designed to place small satellites into orbit around the Earth. The Scout multistage rocket was the first orbital launch vehicle to be entirely composed of solid fuel stages.

An American Propulsion and Rocket manufacturer founded in 1942 that worked on major projects for NASA such as the Apollo CM main engine, the Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System, and engines for the Titan Rockets the launched the likes of Voyager. They merged with Rocketdyne in 2013.

Aerojet

Algol 1D

Unknown

Castor-1 (M33-20-4)

Antares 2(vac) (X-259)

Altair 2(X-258)(vac)

Vought

Scout X-2

P-21A

Low Earth Orbit

Scout X-2 | P-21A

Wallops Island, Virginia, USA

Launch Area 3

The Soviet space program, was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) actived from 1930s until disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Soviet Union's space program was mainly based on the cosmonautic exploration of space and the development of the expandable launch vehicles, which had been split between many design bureaus competing against each other. Over its 60-years of history, the Russian program was responsible for a number of pioneering feats and accomplishments in the human space flight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7), first satellite (Sputnik 1), first animal in Earth orbit (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (cosmonaut Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact (Luna 2), first image of the far side of the Moon (Luna 3) and unmanned lunar soft landing (Luna 9), first space rover (Lunokhod 1), first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth (Luna 16), and first space station (Salyut 1). Further notable records included the first interplanetary probes: Venera 1 and Mars 1 to fly by Venus and Mars, respectively, Venera 3 and Mars 2 to impact the respective planet surface, and Venera 7 and Mars 3 to make soft landings on these planets.

Soviet Space Program

Russian Space Forces

Kosmos-3M (11K65M)

Scientific satellite with a number of space physics instruments

Oval

Kosmos-3M | Oval

Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

132/2

The Proton-K was a Russian, previously Soviet, carrier rocket derived from the earlier Proton. It was built by Khrunichev, and launched from sites 81 and 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

RD-253

RD-0210(v)

RD-0211(v)

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center is a Moscow-based producer of spacecraft and space-launch systems, including the Proton and Rokot rockets and is currently developing the Angara rocket family. The Proton launch vehicle launches from Baikonur and Rokot launches from Baikonur and Plesetsk. Angara will launch from Plesetsk and Vostochny.

Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center

RD-0212

JSC Kuznetsov is one of th leading Russian producers of aircraft engines,liquid-propellant rocket engines as well as aero-derivative gas turbines and modular stations 

JSC Kuznetsov

RD-58

Proton-K/DM

US-KS 2

Geostationary Orbit

Proton-K/DM | US-KS 2

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

200/40

Arianespace SA is a multinational company founded in 1980 as the world's first commercial launch service provider. It undertakes the operation, and marketing of the Ariane programme. Their vehicles launch exclusively from French Guiana in South America.

Arianespace

The Ariane 4 was an expendable space launch system, developed by the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was manufactured by ArianeGroup and marketed by Arianespace. Since its first flight on 15 June 1988 until the final flight on 15 February 2003, it attained 113 successful launches out of 116 total launches.

Aérospatiale was a French state-owned aerospace manufacturer that built both civilian and military aircraft, rockets and satellites. It was originally known as Société nationale industrielle aérospatiale (SNIAS). Its head office was in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The name was changed to Aérospatiale during 1970.

Aérospatiale

PAL (Propulseur d'Appoint Liquide)

Snecma now known as Safran Aircraft Engines (SAE) is a French aerospace engine manufacturer.

Previous Launches

ON THIS DAY (UTC)

1962

P-21A

NASA

SCOUT X-2

Launch Area 3, Wallops Island, Virginia, USA

1977

OVAL

SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM

KOSMOS-3M

132/2, Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

1984

US-KS 2

SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM

PROTON-K/DM

200/40, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

2002

JCSAT 2A

ARIANESPACE

ARIANE 44L

Ariane Launch Area 2, Kourou, French Guiana

2005

EKSPRESS AM-2

KhSC

PROTON-K/DM-2M

200/39 (200L), Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan

2016

BEIDOU NO. 22

CASC

LONG MARCH 3A

Launch Complex 3 ( LC-3 ) ( LA-1 ), Xichang Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

2018

GSAT-6A

ISRO

GSLV MK II

Satish Dhawan Space Centre Second Launch Pad, Sriharikota, Republic of India

2018

VNIIEM EMKA

RUSSIAN SPACE FORCES

SOYUZ 2.1V

43/4 (43R), Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation

2018

BEIDOU-3 M9 & M10

CASC

LONG MARCH 3B / YZ-1

Unknown Pad, Xichang Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China

2022

DEMO FLIGHT

CASC

LONG MARCH 6A

Launch Complex 9A, Taiyuan, People's Republic of China

Sep 12

NS-23

BLUE ORIGIN

NEW SHEPARD

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch, Corn Ranch, USA

Aug 04

NS-22

BLUE ORIGIN

NEW SHEPARD

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch, Corn Ranch, USA

Jun 04

NS-21

BLUE ORIGIN

NEW SHEPARD

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch, Corn Ranch, USA

Mar 31

NS-20

BLUE ORIGIN

NEW SHEPARD

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch, Corn Ranch, USA

Dec 11

NS-19

BLUE ORIGIN

NEW SHEPARD

West Texas Suborbital Launch Site/ Corn Ranch, Corn Ranch, USA

Oct 13

NS-18

BLUE ORIGIN

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12

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04

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04

Mar
31

Dec
11

Oct
13

Aug
26

Jul
20

Apr
14

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14

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13

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11

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02

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23

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18

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29

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12

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05

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19

Apr
02