RSS ''Kármán Line'' (Reusable Space Ship ''Kármán Line'') is a

New Shepard New Shepard is a Reusable launch vehicle, fully reusable Sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, who became the List of space travelers by nationali ...

space capsule A space capsule is a spacecraft designed to transport cargo, scientific experiments, and/or astronauts to and from space. Capsules are distinguished from other spacecraft by the ability to survive reentry and return a payload to the Earth's surfa ...

, built and operated by American spaceflight company

Blue Origin Blue Origin Enterprises, L.P. is an American space technology company headquartered in Kent, Washington. The company operates the suborbital New Shepard rocket and the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket. In addition to producing engines for its own ...

. It is the fourth New Shepard capsule to fly to space, and is slated to be the second to fly passengers, after RSS ''First Step''. The capsule's first uncrewed flight was the NS-27 mission on 23 October 2024, which was also the maiden flight of

booster NS5.

History

RSS ''Kármán Line'', the fourth New Shepard capsule, was built by Blue Origin to "better meet growing customer demand" for New Shepard flights. The spacecraft is named after the

Kármán line The Kármán line (or von Kármán line ) is a conventional definition of the Outer space#Boundary, edge of space; it is widely but not universally accepted. The international record-keeping body Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, FAI ( ...

, an altitude of and the conventional definition of the

edge of space ''Edge of Space'' is a 2024 Swiss-American short film written, directed and produced by Jean de Meuron. Inspired by actual historical events, the 18 minutes short film about a USAF Test Pilot recruited by NASA was among the 15 Shortlisted films ...

, which the capsule crosses at the apogee of its

sub-orbital spaceflight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the primary (astronomy), gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital ...

. The capsule first flew on the uncrewed NS-27 verification mission, which launched on 23 October 2024 carrying twelve customer payloads, after issues pushed back the launch from 7 October 2024. The first crewed flight of the capsule was NS-31, which was the first all-female crew since

Valentina Tereshkova Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born 6 March 1937) is a Russian engineer, member of the State Duma, and former Soviet cosmonaut. She was the first Women in space, woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. S ...

's solo 1963 flight on

Vostok 6 Vostok 6 () was the first human spaceflight to carry a woman, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, into space. Mission The spacecraft was launched on 16 June 1963. It set the record for highest orbital inclination of a crewed spacecraft at 65°, a rec ...

Flights

References

Individual space vehicles Crewed spacecraft Blue Origin New Shepard Space tourism {{Spacecraft-stub