Blue Origin launched the second New Shepard rocket in 2021. The mission confirmed that a reusable spacecraft flew into sub-orbital space and then parachuted at the Blue Origin launch facility in western Texas.
The flight was a bit different from regular missions and included elements of astronaut rehearsals that would eventually replace Blue Origin’s paid commercial space travel customers. In short, they prepared for the flight, moved to the pad, boarded the New Shepard and took a seat, giving them the experience of being on the flight.
The decisive difference from the actual commercial flight is that Blue Origin paused the countdown, resumed the countdown after the simulated crew disembarked, and launched as planned.
The company’s test dummy, the Mannequin Skywalker, flew on this preparatory mission and made important measurements during launch and return.
New Shepard returned and landed without any problems, showing the smoothest landing ever. This was the second launch and landing of this booster. The capsule also landed as planned and achieved a soft landing with the spacecraft’s parachute descent system.
Blue Origin then conducts a rehearsal exercise to recreate the final stages of the actual manned mission, returning the rehearsed astronauts back into capsules and exploring the astronaut recovery and departure process that occurs during commercial flight. It will be a complete rehearsal.
All of these missions show that Blue Origin wants to complete a manned mission by the end of 2021. This is a new way for civilian astronauts to go into space, such as the flight of the Dragon spacecraft in SpaceX and the launch by Virgin Galactic, which may hopefully be realized in the near future. There are more choices.