New Shepard

**New Shepard** is a fully reusable VTVL sub-orbital spacecraft in development by Blue Origin. The spacecraft consists of two parts: the Crew Capsule and the Propulsion Module, also called the booster. New Shepard is controlled entirely by on board computers, without ground control or a human pilot assistance. The Propulsion Module has a single BE-3 engine, aerodynamic fins and landing legs, making it first fully reusable space launch vehicle ever. They use the naming prefix "RSS" for Reusable Space Ship.

Blue Origin plans to use New Shepard for space tourism, however it wasn't until 2018 they announced they would start selling tickets in 2019, however after the success of NS-16 in 2020, tickets are planned to be for sale by the end of the year.

Jeff Bezos has also stated that the same architecture used in the New Shepard booster will be used in their New Glenn orbital rocket.

Each capsule is used with it's own booster, and they are serial numbered together, not separately. For example, when New Shepard 1 lost it's booster on landing, the remaining capsule was retired and development moved on with New Shepard 2 instead of launching the NS1 capsule on a second booster.

## Crew Capsule

The New Shepard Crew Capsule has the largest windows ever sent into space, allowing breathtaking panoramic views of earth from space. This makes sense given the crafts main purpose of taking paying customers to space. The Crew Capsule uses a solid fuel pusher abort system, allowing the huge windows to be unobscured by an abort tower while still providing a safe and full abort window. Since the abort motor is on the capsule and recovered intact if not used, it also reduces the cost unlike replacing an abort tower every launch would. They appear to use the designation system of 2.0-1 for NS3 and probably 2.0-2 for NS4. These use the new capsule design with windows shown above.

## Propulsion Module

The Propulsion Module helped test out Blue Origin's new engines and also pioneered vertical take off, vertical landing (VTVL) rocket stages. It was the first fully reusable rocket stage ever, even before Falcon 9. However, New Shepard is suborbital, while the Falcon 9 is an orbital rocket.

The Propulsion Module currently uses the hydrogen fueled bipropellant BE-3 engine, however the monopropellant BE-1 and the BE-2 which used RP-1 (Rocket Propellant 1) have been used in previous versions. They possibly use the designation system "PM#", similar to PM2, the second test article.

## Development

Most New Shepard launches and testing take place in Blue Origin's West Texas facility. The first test vehicle was called *Goddard*, named after Dr. Robert Goddard who made the first liquid fueled rocket flight, which reflects the prototype's function. It used nine BE-1 hydrogen peroxide fueled monopropellant engines. It made it's first test flight on November 13th, 2006.

The second test vehicle (pictured to the left) is known only as "PM2" from information filed to the FAA. Possibly stands for "Propulsion Module 2", since it didn't have a capsule, only an aerodynamic cone. PM-2 used 3 BE-2 high test peroxide oxidizer and RP-1 fueled engines.

New Shepard 1 or NS1 was the first full production New Shepard. It used a single BE-3 engine, as all the following New Shepards have. It's first flight was deemed a success despite the PM being destroyed on landing. The launch and capsule landing and recovery were successful. NS1 was retired and NS2 was brought in. NS2's first launch was a success and this time the PM made a successful landing, the first of it's kind. NS2 made 4 more flights, all successful, after which it was retired.

New Shepard 3 (NS3) followed with 7 successful flights. NS3 was the first to be outfitted with a new Crew Capsule design, called Crew Capsule 2.0. It is also the first capsule to be named: *RSS H. G. Wells*. RSS stands for Reusable Space Ship. *RSS First Step* (NS4) has made 2 successful flights and is planned as the first to be flown with a crew.

## Fun Facts

* Blue Origin won NASA's Collier Trophy for demonstrating rocket booster reusability with New Shepard.

## Sources

* NS-14 Mission and Naming Convention - Rocketrundowm