Blue Origin successfully launched its 35th New Shepard suborbital mission (NS-35) this morning, September 18, following nearly a month of delays. The uncrewed flight lifted off at 9:01 a.m. EDT (1301 GMT; 8:01 a.m. local time) from the company’s West Texas launch site.
Credit: Blue Origin
Instead of carrying passengers, the capsule was packed with more than 40 scientific payloads, including 24 experiments from NASA’s TechRise Student Challenge, which gives middle and high school students the opportunity to design and fly experiments aboard spaceflight platforms. The manifest also included thousands of postcards sent through Blue Origin’s nonprofit, Club for the Future, which promotes STEAM education.
Powered by its reusable first-stage booster, New Shepard ascended beyond the Kármán Line—the internationally recognized boundary of space, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth. Roughly 7.5 minutes after launch, the booster made a pinpoint landing just 2 miles downrange from the pad, while the capsule descended safely under parachutes, touching down at T+10 minutes, 15 seconds.
NS-35 had originally been scheduled for August 23 but was delayed after engineers identified an issue with the booster’s avionics. A subsequent launch attempt on August 26 was also scrubbed for the same reason. Today’s flight marked the vehicle’s return to action after those setbacks.
With this mission, New Shepard has now flown more than 200 payloads since its debut. Fourteen of its previous 34 flights have carried human passengers, including high-profile travelers such as “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and singer Katy Perry. Its most recent crewed mission, NS-34, launched on August 3 with six participants, among them crypto billionaire Justin Sun.
New Shepard flights typically last between 10 and 12 minutes, providing researchers—and sometimes thrill-seeking tourists—a few minutes of weightlessness above the edge of space. Both the booster and capsule are designed to be reused for multiple flights.
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