Named after astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, New Shepard is a fully reusable, suborbital rocket system built for human flight from the beginning. The crew capsule is an exact replica of the one that flies humans to space.

During New Shepard's 11-minute journey, astronauts soar past the Kármán line (100 km/62 miles), the internationally recognized boundary of space, experiencing several minutes of weightlessness and witnessing life-changing views of Earth through windows that take up more than one-third of the capsule’s surface area. The capsule seats six people and every person on board is a crew member—there are no pilots.

Nearly 99% of New Shepard’s dry mass is reused, including the booster and capsule. New Shepard’s BE-3PM engine is fueled by a highly efficient and clean combination of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. During flight, the only byproduct of New Shepard’s engine combustion is water vapor with no carbon emissions.