New Shepard launch overview

Credit: Blue Origin

New Shepard is a vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing suborbital launch vehicle developed by the American private space company Blue Origin as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism. The rocket is designed to take passengers into suborbital space inside of a crew capsule which has six large observation windows, one per seat. Nrw Shepard is fully reusable and in November 2015 it was the first reusable rocket to succesfully make a soft landing on the ground. The name New Shepard is a reference to the first American astronaut in space, Alan Shepard, one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts. Blue Origin was founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, who made his fortune with Amazon and who was part of the first crewed suborbital spaceflight with the New Shepard rocket and capsule. Learn all about the different manned suborbital spaceflights with the New Shepard rocket from Blue Origin thanks to this overview! 

Launch overview New Shepard

Launch no. Date
launch
Capsule Launch base Max. height Crew Patch Mission success?
0 19/10/2012 RSS Jules Verne 0,7 km (pad abort test)
  • Uncrewed
/

Success

129/04/2015 RSS Jules Verne 93,5 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-01

Success

2 23/11/2015 RSS Jules Verne 100,5 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-02

Success

3 22/01/2016 RSS Jules Verne 101,6 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-03

Success

4 03/04/2016 RSS Jules Verne 103,3 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-04

Success

5 16/06/2016 RSS Jules Verne 101,04 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-05

Success

6 05/10/2016 RSS Jules Verne 93,7 km (in-flight abort test)
  • Uncrewed
NS-06

Success

7 12/12/2017 RSS H. G. Wells 98,2 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-07

Success

8 29/04/2018 RSS H. G. Wells 107 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-08

Success

9 18/07/2018 RSS H. G. Wells 118,8 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-09

Success

10 23/01/2019 RSS H. G. Wells 106,9 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-10

Success

11 02/05/2019 RSS H. G. Wells 105 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-11

Success

12 11/12/2019 RSS H. G. Wells 104,5 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-12

Success

13 13/10/2020 RSS H. G. Wells 107 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-13

Success

14 14/01/2021 RSS First Step 107,05 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-14

Success

15 14/04/2021 RSS First Step 106,3 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-15

Success

16 20/07/2021 RSS First Step 107,05 km
  • Jeff Bezos
  • Mark Bezos
  • Wally Funk
  • Oliver Daemen
NS-16

Success

17 25/08/2021 RSS First Step 105,8 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-17

Success

18 13/10/2021 RSS First Step 107,04 km
  • Chris Boshuizen
  • Glen de Vries
  • William Shatner
  • Audrey Powers
NS-18

Success

19 11/12/2021 RSS First Step 107,06 km
  • Lane Bess
  • Cameron Bess
  • Evan Dick
  • Laura Shepard Churchley
  • Michael Strahan
  • Dylan Taylor
NS-19

Success

20 31/03/2022 RSS First Step 107,1 km
  • Marty Allen
  • Sharon Hagle
  • Marc Hagle
  • Jim Kitchen
  • George Nield
  • Gary Lai
NS-20

Success

21 04/06/2022 RSS First Step 107,04 km
  • Evan Dick
  • Katya Echazarreta
  • Hamish Harding
  • Victor Correa Hespanha
  • Jaison Robinson
  • Victor Vescovo
NS-21

Success

22 04/08/2022 RSS First Step 107,01 km
  • Coby Cotton
  • Mario Ferreira
  • Vanessa O'Brien
  • Clint Kelly III
  • Sara Sabry
  • Steve Young
NS-22

Success

23 12/09/2022 RSS H.G. Wells 11 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-23

Failure

24 19/12/2023 RSS H.G. Wells 107 km
  • Uncrewed
NS-24

Success

Images: Blue Origin