Blue Origin’s New Shepard system for launching tourists and experiments on short, suborbital journeys into space conducted its fifth crewed flight. After a delay last month to fix a backup system that was not meeting performance expectations, NS-21 is scheduled to launch on Saturday, June 4th at 8:25 AM Central Daylight Time (13:25 UTC).
The launch took place at the Blue Origin launch facility known as Launch Site One. The complex resides in the Jeff Bezos-owned Corn Ranch land parcel near Van Horn in the west Texas desert. The site has hosted twenty previous New Shepard launches along with numerous firing tests of Blue Origin-designed engines.