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New Shepard
PM-2 [Blue Origin] |
New Shepard [Blue Origin] |
In 2011, Blue Origin conducted flight tests of the PM-2 prototype of the first stage of the suborbital New Shepard vehicle. In place of the space capsule, the PM-2 carried only a haf-spherical aerodnyamic cap.
The first flight was a short hop with successful soft landing on a concrete pad. For this flight only, three of the five BE-2 engines were used. The second flight, powered by all five engines, went out of control at a height of 13.7 km at a speed of Mach 1.2. The vehicle was destroyed.
The New Shepard vehicle for suborbital space tourism flights consists of the Propulsion Module first stage with a single BE-3 engine and a manned capsule. The stage is recoverable and conducts powered vertical landing at the end of the mission, while the capsule lands by three parachutes, assisted by retro-rockets at the moment of landing.
On the first flight of New Shepard to a height of about 90 km, the capsule was successfully deployed and recovered via a parachute system, while the Propulsion module was not recovered due to a hydraulics problem.
On the second flight, the booster was successfully recovered. Both capsule and booster were re-flown in January 2016 and again successfully recovered. Three more flights and recoveries were conducted. In October 2016, the booster and capsule were used for an in-flight abort test at max-Q. Again, the capsule and the booster were recovered. Both were retired after this test.
| Version | Stage 1 |
|---|---|
| PM-2 | PM-2 / 5 × BE-2 |
| New Shepard | Propulsion Module / BE-3 |
No: Type: Flight Date LS Payload
1 1 PM-2 F1 21.05.2011 * CR R&D 2 2 PM-2 F2 24.08.2011 *F CR R&D 3 1 New Shepard NS-1 #1-F1 29.04.2015 *r CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #1-M1 4 2 New Shepard NS-2 #2-F1 23.11.2015 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #1-M2 5 3 New Shepard NS-3 #2-F2 22.01.2016 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #1-M3 6 4 New Shepard NS-4 #2-F3 02.04.2016 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #1-M4 7 5 New Shepard NS-5 #2-F4 19.06.2016 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #1-M5 8 6 New Shepard NS-6 #2-F5 05.10.2016 *A CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #1-M6 (abort test) 9 7 New Shepard NS-7 #3-F1 12.12.2017 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #2-M1 10 8 New Shepard NS-8 #3-F2 29.04.2018 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #2-M2 11 9 New Shepard NS-9 #3-F3 18.07.2018 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #2-M3 (high altitude abort test) 12 10 New Shepard NS-10 #3-F4 23.01.2019 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #2-M4 13 11 New Shepard NS-11 #3-F5 02.05.2019 * CR New Shepard Crew Capsule #2-M5 Planned: Launch sites: CR = Blue Origin West Texas Launch Site, Corn Ranch, Van Horn, Culberson County, Texas, USA* Suborbital F Failure r Recovery Failure A Abort
